PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
The Arts Council
Contact: Kevin Ledgewood
205-758-5195, x6
ACOUSTIC NIGHT WILL FEATURE WALTER PARKS & SWAMP CABBAGE ANDSPARROW & THE GHOST
(Tuscaloosa) Acoustic Night will feature a performance by Walter Parks & Swamp Cabbage with opening act Sparrow & The Ghost on June 20, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bama Theatre’s Greensboro Room. Presented by The Arts Council, Acoustic Night features new and upcoming singer/songwriters from around the country throughout the calendar year in the intimate setting of the Greensboro Room. A full-service bar is always available, and a $5 cover will be charged.
For more information about The Arts Council or Bama Theatre visit www.tuscarts.org or follow the group on Facebook at “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 for further information.
Walter Parks & Swamp Cabbage
Over the past three decades, Walter Parks has forged a distinctive international career as the lead guitarist for Woodstock legend Richie Havens. He also forms half of the folk-duo The Nudes and is guitarist and leader of the swamp/blues-outfit Swamp Cabbage. With the release of Walter Parks on Judy Collins’ Wildflower Records in September 2010, he has made his debut as a solo artist. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Parks notes that “classical music was offered in public schools when I was a kid,” and his music career began with studying the viola in the sixth through eighth grades. Parks eventually transitioned to the guitar and, in 1973, he formed his first music group. Playing Navy bases, country clubs, cotillions, DeMolay Halls and even church dances, the group called itself The Parental Tears Band. Parks followed various career paths including business/retail, but the energy of New York City, where he now resides, continued to draw him back. While his music projects might seem to be from opposite worlds, they all express elements of his diverse background and balance integral parts of his personality. A common thread through all of Parks’ projects is his use of non-traditional guitar chords inspired by the chord voicings of jazz pianists and steel guitar players.
Sparrow & the Ghost
Stuart Bond and Rachael Roberts compose the male/female duo Sparrow & the Ghost, and they both bring a history of successful musicianship to the table. Bond and Roberts met while performing with local favorites The Still Guns, and Bond first cut his teeth as front-man for the now defunct Tuscaloosa group, The National Trust. A shared love of traditional music brought the two together, and they now inflect their own unique spin on the classic sounds of folk, country and the blues. It is not unusual to see chains and hammers onstage at their shows, nor is it strange to hear the occasional murder ballad– but one will also garner a sense of the joy that music can bring. In a way, their music can be described as a celebration. Their music reveals what every bluesman and balladeer must have felt– the moment of clarity where they realized that singing about a subject also meant its release and a sense of freedom.
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