Junior Parker was an extraordinary blues singer and harmonica player who laid down some superb material over the course of a twenty year career (1952-1971) before his life was cut short just prior to his fortieth birthday. It’s inexplicable, then, why he has such a low profile among blues aficionados. He hit the charts a fair bit through the 1960?s for Duke, retained a strong following among the black club audience but failed to break through to a wider audience. As such he was virtually ignored by the new white blues audience of the 1960?s. If Parker is mentioned at all these days it’s usually in association with his 1953 number “Mystery Train” which was picked up by Elvis. Parker died in November 1971 during an operation for a brain tumor. Before he passed he sailed into the 1970?s in promising fashion cutting a pair of terrific albums; You Don’t Have To Be Black To Love The Blues circa 1970/1971 for Groove Merchant and I Tell Stories Sad And True for United Artists which was released in 1972.
1 comment:
Junior Parker tryin' to modernise blues music, with a touch of soul. I think his voice was much better than on his 1950's sides. Pretty good album and a truly funny cover art. Thank you. Hope you'll post again here. Your place is wonderful.
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