Travis Parker Finding Direction

Travis Parker

It was a night of celebration for Travis Parker, his band, and his fans when he hosted a CD release party at Smitty’s Bar & Grill in Denison. Parker recorded “Finding Direction” with SG Studios in Fort Worth over several months. The resulting 11-song CD is jam-packed with songs that Parker wrote himself, except for one co-write with Caleb Mathis on the pithy self-inventory “What Kind of Man.”

The Travis Parker Band includes Spencer Wylee Whitney on bass, Marcus Rasor on drums, and Willy Warren on lead guitar. Travis, himself, plays acoustic guitar and harmonica, and has lead vocals on all the songs.

Opening the night’s festivities was the Jeremy Phifer band, hailing out of Lamar County. Jeremy, too, has a new CD coming out soon. Phifer is not unique, but is unusual in that he plays lead guitar for his band while also handling the vocals. His bass player provides some great harmonies, and his dad rounds out the boss-instrument category on his steel guitar. There’s also another guitarist along with the drummer, Trey, in this band which is moving on up since its inception less than a year ago.

Parker has been busy.

He won a performing contest in Denison at the end of summer 2011, and took the cash prize rather than the recording contract, he said then, because it had been a dry and difficult summer for farmers. And he is a farmer, hard working from sun-up til the day’s work is done. He has been hosting, occasionally, some of the Wednesday night open mics at Hank’s Texas Grill and performing solo and with the band, including last week’s show at the Whitesboro Rodeo. And in spite of all that, he’s  managed to mix his creative writing and music-making in the schedule.

For the CD, because the others in the band are also hard-working men, Travis used studio musicians, and those include the infamous Haystack Novack on steel guitar and Hank Singer on fiddle and mandolin. The songs on “Finding Direction” are songs of the working man, songs of respect and of keepin’ on, and songs of his own heritage. It is available on iTunes and Spotify, and well worth the downloading.

Chad Smith, owner of Smitty’s Bar & Grill in Denison, is working with the Travis Parker Band, as he is also with the Blue Twenty2s, and said that he has high hopes to help the band move further up in the music world. Watch the Live Music Schedule for future Travis Parker Band shows.

For the Travis Parker Band photos, click here: (Sorry, I didn’t get much on the drummers of either bands.)

For the Jeremy Phifer Band photos, click here:

Category: *- Features, Other venues