13 QUESTION METHOD: WALTER PARKS

It’s a wonder that I even like music. My father used country and gospel radio to annoy the whole family. Instead of rising to an alarm clock, my dad would wake the home with Tammy Wynette or Conway Twitty at full blast. We were taught that Southern culture was beneath us, yet all the while knowing deep down that we were dead level with all things Southern just like the rattlesnakes and palmettos. I didn’t even notice my own Southernness until I moved to New York. Once there, I built new songs upon images of my boyhood times in Florida swamp country and the Carolina hills. A new guitar style emerged that’s part dixieland banjo and part lap steel.

My songs always honor the South and sometimes poke fun at it. Being a Libra, I need an artistic forum to balance comedy and tragedy much like the theater. To that end I’ve created the mostly satirical Swamp Cabbage, whilst my solo work is the sound stage for my emotional and pensive adventures.

For the last six years I’ve recorded and toured the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand with Woodstock legend Richie Havens — whose latest release is on Universal/Polydor France. During time off from shows with Richie, I play festivals and do short tours with Swamp Cabbage and occasionally perform solo. —Walter Parks

1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money?
Dennis Coffee and the Detroit Guitar Band — “Goin’ for Myself.” 1972.

2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money?
Broadcast — Extended Play.

3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it?
“One of These Nights,” by the Eagles. Admittedly un-cool and unfashionably recent, but a damned good solo nonetheless. Yes. I relearned it, ashamed at the thought of answering no.

4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why?
The song “New Mexico” on my upcoming solo debut has a full and lazy lushness that was accomplished without a single keyboard.

5. What's the difference between playing live and playing in a studio?
Privacy. Entertainment is a social act and improvisation is a private one. I love them both. An audience wants to believe that magic just happens right before its eyes, and as entertainers we are vendors of this illusion. If I am able to ignore the dynamic of being watched — thereby creating a mental state of privacy — I can improvise an interesting solo. On the other hand, self-consciousness — the Petri dish of banality — seems to be a prerequisite to the act of entertainment. I am not a quick study in the studio, but I can proudly say that nothing I approve to tape is common. My studio process is to improvise until I discover something that is worthy of being memorized and recorded. A good studio experience is spiritual for me, and sometimes too powerful.

6. What's the difference between a good gig and a bad gig?
If the sound is good, I will play well and the event gets archived in my memory as a good gig. I used to care more about how many people showed up or into what degree of a frenzy they might have been whipped. These days, dodgy P.A.s and lame engineers make me want to take up some other line of work.

7. What's the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?
A good guitar gives me a new song or a new riff. I could give a toss if a guitar plays like butter.

8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently?
Yes. For me an acoustic guitar is a woman. She beautifully responds to finesse and empathy. An electric guitar is a masked male wrestler who moans in agony when he’s thrown to the mat and pinned for a three count.

9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric?
Electric.

10. Do you sound like yourself on other people's guitars?
Yes.

11. Which living artist would you like to collaborate with, and why?
Jim Keltner

12. Which dead artist (music, or other arts) would you like to have collaborated with, and why?
Tom Dowd

13. What's your latest project about?
Feeling in sounds. I tried to make a record that sounded like the way I feel. When I’m troubled or when I’m just letting my mind wander, my “thoughts” often take form as “melodies” — perhaps because I’m very inarticulate on the fly. This record is a compilation of my favorite mental soundtracks from over the last ten years.