Bobby Parker – Funky Children; Unreleased Home Recordings (1978-1985)
Self Released
Available on Amazon, Apple Music and More
20 tracks/66 minutes
Bobby Parker is a man whose musical career spanned from the 1950’s through the 1980’s and continued in the 2010’s. Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and raised in Los Angeles, California, Parker picked up the guitar early and embarked on his musical journey. He began with Otis Williams and the Charms. He played lead guitar with many a great, including Bo Diddley (which included an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show), Paul Williams, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, and the Everly Brothers. He released svceral singles in that time.
In the late 1950’s, Parker joined the house band at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and also toured with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard. He landed in the Washington, D.C. area in the early 1960’s and toured a bit while continuing to release songs. He spent a couple of decades mostly hovering around the D.C. area and finally released two albums in the 1990’s.
While not a big household name, he had some notoriety in the worlds of blues, rock, R&B, soul and funk. Steven Charles Cecil, Bobby’s keyboardist for two decades, was helping Parker move in the early 1990’s and saved a bankers box of Bobby’s home recordings from going to the landfill. This set of songs was culled from about 39 reels of tape Parker recorded in his home studio. There is little to no attribution of who joined him on the recordings.
Included here are songs not appearing on Bobby’s Black Top recordings. Most of the drums are tracks Parker used o back himself. He lays out the electric guitar parts and some wickedly heavy bass grooves. He also likely did some if not all the keyboards here. Some of the vocal tracks have some distortion that could not be completely corrected but are offered for their historical value.
There is some fantastic instrumental stuff in this album. The opener “Communication Breakdown” is a funky and heavy piece that is just superb. “Money Is Not Everything” is a slow and cool instrumental that is followed by the more upbeat “Don’t Send No Doctor” to conclude the album.
Songs like “Still in Love” and “Together” feature Bobby with unknown female vocalists that are quite cool and heavy, funky stuff. Cut’s like “Take You To School” feature some killer keyboard work and great vocals. Songs like “Kiss It” feature some outstanding guitar licks in a slow soul blues that are just sublime.
Some of the early tracks on the CD are the ones that suffered from distortion or damage, but over all this is quite the interesting collection of later stuff from Bobby Parker that are predominantly soul and R&B songs that he laid down by himself and with friends in his home studio.
While Parker is not that well known, he was iconic to many musicians. Carlos Santana named him as one of his three favorite guitar players. He appeared with them at Montreaux; Parker, Buddy Guy and Gatemouth Brown were that trio and all of which were recorded and released in their set entirety. In the 1970’s, Jimmy Pager approached Parker to sign with Swan Song Records and advanced Bobby two thousand dollars, but Parker never took him up on this great opportunity.
Parker was obviously a major talent who never gained the fame he deserved. This collection of music was forgotten in an attic for over 30 years. Luckily, most of it survived intact and it offers us a glimpse of a man many did not get to appreciate as much as they could and should have.
