Graham
With Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and
Joe Jackson and a few others from this
period, Parker was a good testament of
the great singer /songwriter that came
out of the UK from the late '70s.
Graham Parker & The Rumour will
appear for two nights (June 7th and 8th at
City Winery, Chicago). We sat down with
Parker recently to talk about his new
album and the musical legacy he crafted
with The Rumour.
After nearly three decades apart,
Mystery Glue reunites Graham Parker
with his seminal '70s backing band, The
Rumour, which features its original lineup
of Parker, Bob Andrews, Brinsley
Schwarz, Martin Belmont, Andrew
Bodnar and Stephen Goulding. It is a
IE: A lot of fans have been dreaming for
the day when you would reunite with
your legendary '70s backing band, The
Rumour. Now that it has happened, how
do you feel about it?
GP: It happened by accident really – I had
made a few albums where I played every-
dream come true for his die-hard fans
who remember the blistering live shows
Parker gave with this band in the mid and
late 1970s.
Parker broke onto the music scene in
the mid 1970s with iconic albums like
Howling Wind and Heat Treatment. He was
a critic's darling and built a substantial
audience in the US, Europe and his native
UK. Although he was mistakenly often
labeled a punk artist, his music grew from
the thriving British pub scene and was
more closely aligned to artists like Bob
Dylan and his US contemporary (and
close friend) Bruce Springsteen.
thing except the drums and the keyboards. I thought it is time to do something different again. I was playing shows
with a couple of the members separately but I had not put the band together. I was
going to make an album with two of the
members as a trio album- then I thought
maybe we should put the whole band
together again.
Graham Parker (Photo: Laurence Watson)
06•2015
8 illinoisentertainer.com june
2015
IE: Listening to Mystery Glue it's as if
you never parted ways with The
Rumour…
GP: I think it is a particularly good sounding record. It has a big sound. If anything
I was trying to get back to what I was
doing with Howling Wind, because that
was a particularly strong album. And
there was something about what we were
doing back then that people connected
with. I would say I was trying to get closer to that period in my career than say,
Squeezing Out Sparks, which was a different type of record.
IE: What can we expect from the upcoming tour?
GP: Well I am not really going out
acoustic, because we still plug-in. But it
will be me and Brinsley Schwartz. Then,
in June I will be going out with The
Rumour for full band shows. We are looking forward to getting out there and playing this record.