Parker Millsap feat. Man on a Horse (with Peyton Tochterman) at Gypsy Sally's - 11/08/14

Sat, November 8, 2014

Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm

$12 in Advance - $15 Day of Show

PARKER MILLSAP

Don’t miss one of this year’s nominees for the Americana Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year!

An Oklahoma native brought up in the Pentecostal church, which he’s since departed, 20-year-old Parker Millsap will make you a true believer with his self-titled Okrahoma Records/ Thirty Tigers debut album. Accompanied by his collaborators, high school buddy Michael Rose on bass and fiddle-player Daniel Foulks, the young tunesmith delivers his religious-laced parables, character-driven narratives and relationship tales with the fire-and-brimstone fervor of a preacher, restoring our faith in the power of song.

Influenced by the dust-bowl neutrality of John Steinbeck, Millsap’s memorable creations include the wife-murdering bible-thumper of “Old Time Religion,” the self-made church-on-wheels minister in “Truck Stop Gospel,” the questioning believer of “When I Leave,” the meth cooks in “Quite Contrary” and the gambler who spends all his money buying lottery tickets in “Yosemite.” Filled equally with ghosts and guilt, as well as an objectivity that invites listeners to paint themselves in each picture, Millsap’s songs teeter on the fine line between gospel and the blues, sin and redemption, God and the devil, heaven and hell… from the pulpit to the back pew.

Parker first picked up a guitar at nine, then plugged in and went electric after getting into Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, eventually starting a cover band, Fever in Blue, with classmate Michael Rose, which would play Jimi Hendrix songs at the local Loose Caboose Festival in downtown Purcell on Labor Day weekend. After graduating high school, he went to Northern California, where he interned at Prairie Sun Recording, the studio where Tom Waits cut Bone Machine and Mule Variations. Returning to Oklahoma, he “put down the electric guitar and got into song craft,” releasing an indie album, Palisade, which he sold “from the back of my van.” A trip to Nashville found him playing at the Tin Pan South songwriter’s festival, where an “in the round” performance impressed Old Crow Medicine Show’s manager so much that he invited Millsap to open a string of dates for the band, later leading to a slot on their prestigious New Year’s Eve gig at the Ryman Auditorium. Millsap also opened dates for fellow Oklahoma blues-rocker John Fullbright earlier this year.

“Hope I’m not burning my luck up early,” laughs the humble Millsap about the good things starting to happen for him. Like the state where he was born and still lives, Parker Millsap is a tough soul, at home with extremes of temperature… and temperament.
“I do have a great deal of pride in where I come from, and that’s not like me,” he admits, explaining Oklahoma is Choctaw for “Red Man.” “The people are some of the nicest, most hospitable you’ll ever meet. I think that’s because, when they originally settled here, it was wilderness, and the only thing they had to hang on to was one another.”

Parker Millsap is ready to share those Oklahoma roots with the rest of the country, and, hopefully, the world.

“I like to set goals for myself that are impossible to reach,” he explains. “That way, I always have something to aim for, a better song, different characters, new stories.. I just want to pay the bills and feed my dog, and maybe buy a new guitar every now and then. That’s all I need. I don’t want to be Elvis Presley, but I wouldn’t complain if a million girls screamed for me, either. Just don’t tell my girlfriend that.”

MAN ON A HORSE (FEATURING PEYTON TOCHTERMAN)

Man on A Horse is the brain-baby of drummer Stuart Gunter. He called up his buddies bassist Randall Pharr, harmonicist Gary Green, and guitarist and songwriter Peyton Tochterman in order to put together a quartet that explores American Roots Music and songwriting and presents original music in a fresh but classic way. Pharr is a master of the upright. And American Roots UK calls Gunter “an excellent musician.” Green actually beat Blue Traveler’s John Popper in The Harmonica World Championships in Germany. As for Tochterman and his songs, Maverick Magazine calls him a “skillful song poet” and Vintage Guitar Player says his playing “demands attention.” All that aside, this is a band you can still just “kick back and drink a cold beer to. ”(Peyton’s Mom) Their music is purely American, certainly Virginian, and it is honest, bold, and uncompromising. Sounds like a beer ad doesn’t it. Well, come take a sip and see for yourself.