Good Morning!
Today we’re listening to “Local Girls” by Graham Parker
“I went to Morocco, joined a band called Pegasus, ran out of money, went to Gibraltar and worked on the docks, writing songs about the sun and the morning and the birds.”
~Graham Parker
In the mid-70s, Graham Parker gave up his day job as a gas station attendant and started traveling to London to play in pubs around the city. Assembling veteran musicians, they titled themselves Graham Parker & The Rumour. The group ultimately put out five records together, the 4th one being 1979’s Squeezing Out Sparks. If this sounds similar to the likes of Elvis Costello or Dave Edmunds, trust your instincts; The Rumour played on several records during this era.
The band & Parker went their separate ways until 2011 when Parker reassembled them for a new record. In 2012, they appeared in Judd Apatow’s film This is 40, playing themselves.
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He was spindly with a thinning hairline, archetypically British, and never took off his shades, which made him appear more nearsighted than cool. But he was also great. His dual 1976 releases, Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment, heralded the emergence of a street-tough soul singer with genuine literary chops. Here was a gas station attendant from the miraculously named working-class London exurb Deepcut, channeling the mystic-reverie of early Van Morrison and the comically embittered broadsides of Highway 61 Revisited-era Bob Dylan. Graham Parker was a force of nature.
Read the rest of the review here.
Listen:
“Local Girls” by Graham Parker| Squeezing Out Sparks, 1979
Click the record to listen on your platform of choice.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this track!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
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Sweet post, Kevin! (PS while I started looking for the Flamin' Groovies setlist, I found ANOTHER Fountains of Wayne one. Still looking for the FG, but have some really good pics with Cyril Jordan!)
Great post, Kevin. I was lucky enough to see Parker along with Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwarz sometime around 1985 when they played a few gigs in California. They were not using the Rumours name or any other band name, if I recall, just billed under their own names. What a great revival that time was--it felt like things had nosedived in the late 70's but came roaring back with acts like these. I did a post on rock of that era, on both sides of the ocean. Check it out:
https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/rock-1-the-1960s-part-1-20-07-05