Kenny Parker

During the mid-1990s Detroit blues guitarist and songwriter Kenny Parker issued his first album, Raise the Dead, on the London-based JSP Records imprint. Exposure to the Beatles in the early 1960s sparked Parker’s initial interest in blues, though he quickly traced their sound back to its origins. Raised in Albion, Michigan, he joined his earliest group, the Esquires, at age fourteen. In high school he encountered Albert King and B.B. King through a local record store and absorbed their approach as his primary model. After earning a degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1976, Parker took work at a Cadillac plant while pursuing nighttime blues opportunities. He soon collaborated with Detroit mainstay Mr. Bo (Louis Bo Collins) and later became a member of the Butler Twins. While touring Europe with the Butler Twins, JSP founder John Stedman heard Parker and offered him a recording deal. The Butler Twins appear as backing musicians on Raise the Dead, joined by harp master Darrell Nulisch, widely recognized for his tenure with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets. Both the Butler Twins and Nulisch supply vocals on the album, placing Parker’s guitar work at the forefront because he does not regard himself as a singer.