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BiTS INTERVIEW: JOYANN PARKER

With roots in the church and a solid foundation of musical education, Joyann Parker found her
authentic voice later in life and created her own blend of roots music that combines soul, R&B,
gospel, jazz and traditional blues styles. Ian McKenzie spoke to her on the telephone.

BiTS: How are you doing?

JP: I am fine. I home school my children, so you’re giving me a break. I get a teacher break

[laughs].

BiTS: Oh, really? I suppose it’s all
lockdown learning and that kind of stuff
now.

JP: I decided to home school just because
of all that. We didn’t know what was going
on and whatnot, so I’m able to be home
with them, so I just decided to home school
them, so it’s going okay.

BiTS: I want to talk to you about your
career, your background and then about
the new album that you’ve got, I gather.

JP: Yes.

BiTS: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me
something about your upbringing. Was there a lot of music in the house when you were young?

JP: Yeah, my mother was a church musician and so I started singing and playing piano really
young. She tells me I sang the first time in front of people at two in church and then I started piano
lessons at four. The kind of music I do now though, there was not a lot of that. They listened to a lot

of oldies, like old rock and roll and they grew up in the 70s, so Moody Blues and things like that my
mum likes. I didn’t get a lot of exposure to R&B and blues and stuff until my uncle who is a
bachelor, he was kind of like my second dad and he had a very eclectic album collection and loved
everything, so I got exposed to music from ‘the old country’, like Clapton, and Deep Purple. You
know what I mean, that kind of stuff, but really eclectic and just everything, so he’s really where I

got my love of all kinds of music from.

BiTS: When did you start to play an instrument?

JP: I was four when I started piano and then I actually play a lot of instruments. I play trumpet. I
started that when I was about nine, probably and I picked up a couple of other horns in high school,

just to learn them. Then I went to college for music as well and was a band director, so I learned all
the other instruments. I’m an okay drummer and can play a little bit of flute.