HENRY PARKER
Yorkshire psych-folk songwriter taps into Bert Jansch and dials up Theo Travis.
LESS THAN A DECADE ago, Henry Parker was playing guitar in ear-mangling heavy metal bands. Today, he’s steadily building a reputation as one of the UK’s most intriguing singer-songwriters, with a sound rooted in folk but infused with psychedelic flair and frequent prog-friendly embellishments. As he explains to Prog, the transition from massive, foot-on-the-monitor riffs to elegiac, acoustic introspection was surprisingly smooth.
“I’ve always been obsessed with guitar playing. When
I got to about 20, I was at university, studying music, and surrounded by a lot of other musicians and just had my ears a bit more wide open to other things. The reason it was folk music rather than any other genre, was its earthiness, that historic and ancient feel to it. I also found out about Martin Simpson and Bert Jansch, incredible guitar players who can play very fast and very well, but in a whole different style to metal. I found that very exciting.”
The follow-up to Parker’s 2019 debut Silent Spring, new album Lammas Fair is a much richer and more adventurous affair. Steeped in the twinkly-eyed textures of the psychedelic world, Travelling For A Living and The Brisk Lad reflect Parker’s desire to blur the lines between genres, and to emulate the earthy, authentic and sometimes eccentric music that inspires him.
“The psych thing is something I got very excited about after discovering folk music,” he says. “The more I read about the late 60s, the more I realised that it wasn’t that folk was a genre and rock was a genre, and never the twain shall meet. You’d have Bert Jansch listening in on Pink Floyd gigs, and the musicians were all playing together… and doing the same drugs! [Laughs.] Like The Incredible String Band – they played the folk clubs to begin with, but they really had more in common with Syd Barrett. I love folk albums that are tinged with psychedelia. Even someone like [folk legend] Anne Briggs – the way her records were recorded gives them a really haunting quality that you couldn’t get using Pro Tools today.”
Meanwhile, as his musical vision blossoms, Parker is particularly pleased to have the occasional services of Theo Travis (Soft Machine/Steven Wilson alumnus) at his disposal, noting that the pair’s creative relationship came as a huge but serendipitous surprise.
“I met him when I supported Soft Machine in Hebden Bridge. As I was soundchecking, Theo was watching, and afterwards he said, ‘I really like that, let me know if you ever need any woodwind…’ It came at a moment as I was recording Silent Spring and nearly finishing it, and it was exactly what I wanted, a bit of flute on the album. So he played on a couple; on Silent Spring and he plays flute, piano and a bit of Fender Rhodes on the new one. He’s amazing.”
As future plans start to become more realistic, Henry Parker is aiming to take his new songs to the people, whether backed by a recently assembled electric trio or in their raw and unadorned acoustic state. Having discovered his musical vocation, the possibilities now seem endless.
“The world that I’d most like to inhabit is the meeting point between folk and prog, not having feet too firmly in any one camp,” Parker concludes.
“THE WORLD I’D MOST LIKE TO INHABIT IS THE MEETING POINT BETWEEN FOLK AND PROG.”