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With 22 albums of original material released over his 40 years as a performer, Graham Parker has a dizzying selection to choose from when it comes to crafting set lists for his live shows.
Not that it’s all that complicated.
“There’s no great thought that goes into it,” he admitted during a recent telephone interview from a hotel near Gatwick Airport in London. “It’s basically just a kind of a feeling out, really. There’s no real science to it—it is what it is. It’s finding songs I enjoy playing.”
As he heads to the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center for an 8 p.m. show on Sunday, April 10, there are complicating factors. He’s not performing with his legendary backing band, The Rumour. Nor is he touring solo, as he has many times in the past.
Billed as the Graham Parker Duo, the 65-year-old British singer/songwriter will be joined onstage by Brinsley Schwarz, a longtime collaborator and legendary performer in his own right. Before joining The Rumour in the mid-1970s, the guitarist led an eponymous British pub rock band that also featured Nick Lowe on bass and vocals, and had a huge impact in its home country.
Finding songs that work for the two alone on stage—Mr. Parker on acoustic guitar, and Mr. Schwarz on electric guitar—is part of the challenge. But so was convincing Mr. Schwarz to be onstage with Mr. Parker, and only Mr. Parker, with no other accompaniment.
“When re-forming The Rumour, it seemed that Brinsley had never really played onstage without a drummer,” Mr. Parker said, referring to the 2011 reunion for an album, “Three Chords Good,” and a tour. “I said, ‘The duo thing will be fine—I’ve done it with a lot of people.’ … I said, ‘Brinsley, if I could do this solo, we could do it as a duo—it’s twice as good.’”
Mr. Parker had an auspicious debut in the mid-1970s, often labeled a British “Angry Young Man,” along with fellow singer-songwriters Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. The three played their own versions of rock that predated and influenced both the nascent punk movement and the new wave music that followed.
His first four albums, all released in the late 1970s, are considered classics, culminating in his masterpiece, “Squeezing Out Sparks,” which Rolling Stone included on its list of the top 500 greatest albums of all time. He continued recording, mostly solo, in the years since, scoring with albums such as “The Real Macaw,” “The Mona Lisa’s Sister” and his latest release, 2015’s “Mystery Glue.”
Mr. Parker’s songwriting has won him legions of fans, including Bruce Springsteen, who provided backing vocals on one track of Graham Parker and The Rumour’s 1980 album “The Up Escalator.” Springsteen also offered a famous endorsement, saying the band was the only one he’d actually pay to see play live.
Mr. Parker is a difficult performer to categorize, as he has sampled a wide variety of styles over his four decades as a performer and recording artist. Which makes the set list for his shows with Mr. Schwarz both compelling and challenging.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t 12-bar blues. Every song is complex in its own way,” Mr. Parker said. “How do we do this song? It’s something we have to work at.”
In some cases, it means reinterpreting songs—“turning numbers on their heads a little here and there,” as he puts it—and including songs from throughout his varied career. “I’m lucky to have an audience that, by and large, understands. The songs, they haven’t all sounded the same. There are all kinds of different records in my history, with different approaches and different feels.”
Attendees at the Westhampton Beach show should expect plenty of up-tempo rock numbers that were the focus of his early career. “We’re not doing gentle, sweet things. We’re rocking it out,” he said. “There’s an energy to it. We’re not quiet.”
But Mr. Parker said both his approach and his trademark voice have evolved with age: “Over the years, I’ve learned that I have actual songs here. It’s not about just battering people. … I think the fact that my voice has changed totally over the years—it’s not all mid-range yelling anymore. There are a lot of colors to it now.”
Mr. Parker was sitting in the airport hotel waiting for a flight to a one-off gig in Nice, France, an unusual “literary creative endeavor” with author Eric Naulleau, who wrote a book, “Parkeromane,” that is an appreciation of the artist and his music. It was published in French—a language Mr. Parker does not speak. Nevertheless, he was getting ready to do something the pair had done a few times before: Mr. Naulleau reads passages about a particular song on stage, in French, and then nods to Mr. Parker, who plays it. “Very, very fascinating,” he said, adding, “I got the gist of one or two of the stories. Very fascinating.”
Having played Europe and the West Coast of the United States last year, the Westhampton Beach show is an early one in an East Coast swing this spring for the Graham Parker Duo. The Rumour is still out there as an option, at least for albums in the future, if the material seems to fit the band, Mr. Parker said. But touring with the band? After six tours following the 2011 reunion, not likely.
“There’s a shelf life to bands that re-form and get back together,” he said. “You use up the audience you have. And then it’s a case of pushing your luck too far. … You should stop when you’re ahead.”
For now, the Graham Parker Duo gives fans both old and new a chance to discover, or rediscover, his catalog. And it gives the performer himself a thrill that doesn’t require a band, let alone an arena: “Every time I walk on a stage,” he said, “it’s sort of like the first time.”
The Graham Parker Duo will perform at 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 10, at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $45, $40 and $35. For information or to order tickets, call (631) 288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.
Joseph Shaw, Executive Editor on Mar 28, 2016