"The thing I was born to do" + time travel with Carmen McRae
037: Angela Parrish
She came to LA and lived in her car. But now she's a renowned, busily prolific singer, writer and producer. I’m very honored to have Angela Parrish on the show today.
[photos by Shervin Lainez]
This is Play It Like It’s Music, I’m Trevor. Thanks for listening.
On Wednesday, April 29th of 2020, music is not content! It’s connection.
I couldn’t be happier to present this show to you today. It’s a two-parter. We have a great interview with a great musician (which is standard if you’ve been listening) and then I have a special treat for you at the end, where I dig into some archival tape and we’ll hear a bit of very candid talk by Carmen McRae. So stay tuned for that.
Angela Parrish likes to describe her stuff as “new music for old souls” and it fits.
She’s originally from Newton, Kansas, where she started early with piano and viola lessons, children’s chorus and high school choir, later graduating from Wichita State University and has a master’s degree in jazz piano from the University of Northern Colorado.
Then she showed up in LA with $700 in her pocket, where she stuck it out from sleeping in her car to singing the opening lines of the movie La La Land. We get into all the layers of her story in the interview, and her songwriting is just incredible. Stay tuned for tastes of that underneath.
Click PLAY above to hear my interview with Angela Parrish
ALSO: want to have a zoom meeting with her? Go here.
BONUS SECTION:
Carmen McRae should need no introduction, if she does, then watch this video. She’s immortal among jazz singers:
I’m gonna try something new here, please let me know what you think of it by writing in as you so often do. I envision this show as a weekly dose of connection and inspiring music talk, and we have an amazing population of contemporaries who I’ll never ever get through the supply of.
But back in 1989 Joe Smith, who had been president of three major labels, published a book called "Off The Record" which was an oral history of the music business featuring over 200 interviews with iconic singers, musicians and industry figures to talk about their lives and their music. The book came out, everyone said it was great. It's an amazing artifact. But then in 2012 he took it up a notch and donated his entire set of unedited sound recordings to the Library of Congress.
You can go check out the Joe Smith Collection (link in the show notes) and be a fly on the wall as Joe hangs with all the greats and boy does he get them to open up. All types of popular music are represented — it's a who's who from rock ‘n' roll, jazz, rhythm & blues and pop to big-band, heavy metal, folk and country-western.
Thanks to the generosity of Joe Smith and the Library of Congress, the archive is available to use, and I’ve gone through it to find my favorite bits. I’m gonna let them all play in a row here for you at the end of the show. So let’s spend a little time with Carmen McRae. We need to know and remember our musical ancestors.
There's a little chop in the tape where it skips a bit where she's mentioning Ronny Milsap... but you’ll catch on. It's an incredible story about how she resigned in protest from NARAS which runs the grammys, but did it TWICE. Two years in a row. There’s all kinds of other juice about how she toured, how she came together as an artist… I won’t tell you everything. Just listen. The questions all come from Joe Smith and I’ve tightened it up quite a bit for you so they get right to the point.
The LOC Joe Smith Collection: https://www.loc.gov/collections/joe-smith/
Press PLAY above to hear the whole episode
Thanks for listening to Play It Like It’s Music. Thanks to Angela for spending some very generous time with us. You can find her at Angela Parrish dot com as well as on all the socials @songsbyangela.
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Follow me on social media @trevorexter and talk to me on there if you have thoughts about the show.
We're all contending with a mutating professional landscape, jacked revenue streams, a catastrophic global pandemic and plenty of other noise out in the culture.
But you gotta keep playing.
We don't draw any lines here between scenes or styles.
As always, thank you for listening and remember to play it like its music.
You can check out my music on bandcamp and other places. It’s all at my website, trevorexter.com. Sign the mailing list on substack to get this show sent right to you the very moment it comes out. Consider hiring me to score your piece, do some cello, teach you lessons, produce your show or back you up onstage.
Music is a beautiful thing and it makes the world go round.
Big love to your ears.
Trevor
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