How many people can say they inspired Carlos Santana to pick up the guitar?
Or inspired the Beatles to write not only "I Feel Fine", but "Day Tripper" as well?
Or inspired Washington DC music legend Chuck Brown to sing and play guitar? Or was part of Bo Diddley's band when Bo appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955. An appearance led to the late guitarist being banned permanently from any further bookings on the show, which at that time was the top-rated show on television.
Or was with the Winter Dance Party in February 1959 at The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa "The Day The Music Died" when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were all killed in a plane crash?
Or enjoyed the patronage of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, who wanted to sign Bobby to Swan Song Records, making Bobby the first artist on the label?
Bobby Parker could and did...
Born in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1937, Bobby Parker was raised in southern California after his family moved to Los Angeles when he was six. Going to school in Hollywood, the young Parker was bitten by the scenery, and decided he wanted to be in show business after being taken to clubs by his father, who had a job servicing jukeboxes in the area. It was around this time he met and later became good friends with Etta James.
At the Million Dollar Theatre, he saw big stage shows by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, and Lionel Hampton. Although he had an early interest in jazz, the blues bit him when artists like T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and Pee Wee Crayton came to town.
Parker began playing in the early '50s as a guitarist with Otis Williams and the Charms after winning a talent contest sponsored by Johnny Otis. Later, he backed Bo Diddley, which included a historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which led to Bo being banned by Ed from ever appearing on the top-rated show ever again. It was also during this time with Bo that he worked as an uncredited session musician at Chess Records for some of the greatest blues artists of all time, including Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf before joining the touring big band of Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams. He settled in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, dropping out of Williams's band and making a go of it on his own.
He is perhaps best known for his 1961 song, "Watch Your Step," a single for the V-Tone label that peaked at # 51 in the pop charts and was released on London HLU 9393 in the UK. The John Barry Seven released an instrumental version in November 1961 and Parker's song was later covered by several British blues groups, most prominent among them the Spencer Davis Group, and serving as the basis for Led Zeppelin's 'Moby Dick", and is the primary influence for two Beatles classics, "Day Tripper" and "I Feel Fine."
Although Bobby Parker may not be a familiar name to the average music fan, he definitely caught the ear of many musicians in the UK, who then filtered variations, and brought it back to the youth of America.
John Lennon in particular was enamored of Parker. A KB Discomatic jukebox made in the UK using a Swiss-made mechanism which Lennon bought in 1965. to accompany him on tour, he loaded it with 40 singles - one of which was "Watch Your Step".
In 1974, when the ex-Beatle made a guest appearance spinning vinyl on New York City's highest-rated station at the time, WNEW, he brought in a handful of his favorites. Bobby Parker being one of them. On air, before playing "Watch Your Step", Lennon said, "'Watch Your Step' is one of my favorite records. The Beatles have used the lick in various forms. The Allman Brothers used the lick straight as it was."
Fellow Beatles guitarist George Harrison admitted in March 1990 while speaking to Musician magazine, “I’ll tell you exactly how that came about. We were crossing Scotland in the back of an Austin Princess singing Matchbox (Carl Perkins) in three-part harmony and it turned into I Feel Fine. The guitar part was from Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step – just a bastardized version.”
Carlos Santana in particular was inspired to pick up the guitar after seeing the guitar legend live in Tijuana as a young teen. Speaking to Guitar Player Magazine in 1996, he said, "“Bobby Parker is a musician of the same caliber as Albert King and Albert Collins. “He’s one of the few remaining guitarists on this planet who can pierce your heart and soothe your soul. He inspired me to pick up the guitar".
Parker's style has been described by his protégé Bobby Radcliff as Guitar Slim meets James Brown, and that's not that far off the mark. In the summer of 1994, Santana was so happy about Parker's comeback on the BlackTop/Rounder label that he took him out on tour with him for a number of dates, including a documented appearance with Buddy Guy, Gatemouth Brown, Nile Rogers, and Santana at the 2004 Montreux Festival.
Parker's music continues to inspire musicians to the present day, as evidenced by Joe Bonamassa's sizzling version of "It's Hard But It's Fair," - originally produced by Fleetwood Mac's producer Mike Vernon - released on the blues rock titan's new album, 'Blues Deluxe 2'.
I was a friend of Bobby's. We corresponded back and forth after this interview, mainly via YouTube messaging. Our conversations unfortunately were lost when Google changed the format of the video-sharing platform years ago. Why was he not as successful as he should have been? That's up for speculation. Bad luck, poor business deals, and many factors were involved. My only hope is that this article will bring him the type of posthumous recognition he deserved while he was alive. Bobby Parker passed away on October 31, 2013, at the age of 76. By all rights, if he were still alive, he'd be right up there with Buddy Guy or Bobby Rush in terms of recognition. We'll never know for sure. At any rate, this is for you Bobby. Love you brother...,
Interview and text
©
2023 Keith Langermanwere really young. How did you get from Louisiana to California?
Bobby Parker: I was about six or seven years of age, something like that. My family was looking for a
better life, a better shot at it, you know? They wanted to get out of the whole race situation that was
going on in Louisiana. It was terrifying when I was just a child there. My dad was an accomplished
musician, but he didn't he didn't play music as his livelihood. He was trying to get out of all that stuff going on in Louisiana and make a big legitimate life for himself. We eventually did that when we got to
California. He used to have video machines and Wurlitzer jukeboxes. He had hundreds of them out in
L.A. At the airports, post offices, and places like that. He was really lucky. By the time I was 10 or 12, my father was rollin' man.
NHOR: So he had a jukebox business then?
BP: Jukeboxes, and whatever made money. Candy machines, pinball, whatever. He had
photo machines too. You'd put a dollar in there, it'd spin around, and you'd pull the curtain. He had those gizmos. He used to tell me, "Robert, you're not in school on Saturday. I want you to go with me to service machines". I'd say, "Oh, woah..."(Laughs)
I got into wanting to do it because I found out that in some of those nightclubs, where all those machines were, there were blues cats playing. Oh, man. I used to run into T Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson, and a bunch of cats. Little Esther Phillips. Man, they were the real deal. We saw them rehearsing, and my father would say, "C'mon Robert, we've got to go". I'd be thinking, "This is getting good!" (Laughs) Hearing all those good blues licks.
NHOR: Is that what led you towards playing the blues, seeing all those musicians in the clubs
while with your father?
BP: Absolutely. My mom was a great gospel singer also. Her family...Four or five of her
sisters and brothers, they were really good singers in church. My dad met my mom some kind of way
there. He was tall, light-skinned, and had hazel eyes. My mom was a really pretty black
lady. (Laughs) I got all this music honestly man.
NHOR: Who were your early musical influences? Who did you listen to first?
BP: Lowell Fulson. I'll tell you a little story about him. I had a little paper route when I was
about 12 or 13 years old. There used to be an old guy who would sit outside down the street from where
we had a house. My dad had bought a nice house after he got on his feet out in L.A. I used to throw the
paper over this guy's fence.
Then around seven in the evening, I used to have to go collect the quarters for the papers. I'd ride my
bicycle around collecting from the people. I saw this old guy sitting out on the porch, wailing blues like
John Lee Hooker, man. This guy was one of the people I delivered papers to, but I didn't know that until
later. I thought he had a family there, but nobody lived there but him. He was some kind of dynamite. He was way up there, probably pushing 80, but he looked in pretty good health.
I used to come up there and say, "Collecting for The Times". He'd say, "C'mon in here boy. You like this
music?" I'd say, "Yeah man". He asked me, "Have you ever tried to play one of these guitars?" I told him, "No, I haven't". He asked me, "Well, how would you like to learn?" So I told him, "I sure would like to learn it". (Laughs) He told me, "Well, I know your dad, and you live right up the street. Why don't you take my guitar, practice on it, and see what you come up with". I said, "Whoa, that is really nice of you"
NHOR : What kind of guitar was it?
 |
| Lowell Fulson, 1950's |
BP : It was an acoustic. A great big old box. As big as me. I was little then, and I'm kind of
little now. (Laughs) I took it home and I learned Lowell Fulson's "Reconsider Baby". That was the first
song I ever learned. I went down to The Johnny Otis Show, with Johnny Otis, Mel Walker and Little
Esther. Etta James and Johnny "Guitar" Watson were in the same area. They hung out down at the Club
Oasis also. I used to go down there. I learned that song, I got on that talent show, on Thursday night, and I won that show for about six weeks straight with that one tune. I didn't know anything else, but people didn't know that. (Laughs) I learned that song, and that was the beginning of the bug that's been biting me from then on.
NHOR : You mentioned Etta James just a little bit ago. I've heard that you went to school with Etta, is that correct?
BP : Yeah, I went to a school called Manual Arts in Los Angeles. A couple of times during the
summer, summer school, things like that. After I got bitten by this music bug, guitars, blues, and stuff like that, school was on a second plate then. Mainly because the kid gangs at that time were so crazy.
Etta went to Manual Arts. She was a student there. She was learning how to sing and get out in public performing and stuff like that. So was Johnny "Guitar" Watson. When he was young they called him "Young John" Watson. There was a DJ on the radio in California by the name of Hunter Hancock in the '50's who gave him that name. He was great, and so was Lowell Fulson. I learned his song and I was in the zone.
NHOR: Were you and Etta friends during that time?
BP: Not really. We became friends after I was discovered playing with Otis Williams and The
Charms. I was discovered in a little school play. Some of Otis Williams' group came backstage and said,
"Wow, you play guitar great, and you sing great too. How would you like to go out on the road and get
with a good group?" I asked, "Who's the group?" They said, "Otis Williams and The Charms". I said,
"Whoa! I've heard of you guys!"
I found out that they were just like The Jackson 5. They were so good. With the dance steps, and that
Jackson 5 type of thing. Way ahead of them of course. So after I got out there I learned a lot. That was
my first big gig, traveling. I was supposed to go back to school, but I couldn't go back to school. The kids were too rough, in high school, junior high school.
 |
| Otis Williams & The Charms, 1954 |
NHOR: This was after they had their hit with "Hearts Of Stone?" ( In 1954, "Hearts of Stone" gave Otis Williams & The Charms their first and biggest hit, reaching #1 on the R&B charts for nine weeks at the end of the year. It sold over one million copies, their first recording to do so, and was awarded a gold disc. It also reached #15 on the pop charts)
BP : Yeah, it was right after that. They were hot, man!
NHOR: So you were still in high school when you were out on the road with them?.
BP: Yeah, I was still in high school then. I got interested in the music, and I wanted to get out
of that, because the kids and the gangs on the street were more than I could take.
NHOR : After you were with Otis Williams you joined Bo Diddley's band. How did you get hooked up with Bo?
BP : That was from being seen on Irvin Feld's Top 10 or 15 Revues. We were on those
shows, and also on those shows there was Bo Diddley and The Paul Hucklebuck Band. I went with Bo
after Otis Williams and The Charms. Bo Diddley asked me, "Man, you are sure good with that group. How about kicking it with us and learn some blues? You play blues licks in that doo-wop group". I said, "I'd love to do that Bo".
His real name was Elias McDaniel, and he was young then too. We hooked up, and we learned Bo
Diddley type songs. He was doing what they called "hambone", that hambone lick. He was good. We
toured all over, and we were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955. There was some funny stuff going on in
those days, man. Because Ed Sullivan told him, "Bo, you cannot come on here and sing "Bo Diddley".
NHOR: They wanted him to play "Sixteen Tons"...
BP : (Sings) "Sixteen Tons...And what do you get"....That was the biggest song in the nation
at that time, by Tennessee Ernie Ford. So Bo Diddley was mad as I don't know what. I said, "Bo, let's play "Bo Diddley" anyway". So they agreed. Bo started off playing "Sixteen Tons", then after about 10 or 15 seconds of it went right into "Bo Diddley". He made "Sixteen Tons" sound like Bo Diddley. When the show was over, Ed Sullivan and his crew were so mad they didn't know what to do, man. But you know what? It made "Bo Diddley a superstar. Millions of people saw that, and they were just crazy about Bo after that.
NHOR: Ed Sullivan was big back then. You couldn't get any bigger than that show...
BP: Oh yeah, he was big time, on Sunday evenings all over the country.
NHOR: That led to him being banned from the show, and he never was to appear on it again. Was
Bo aware at the time that going against Sullivan would result in him being banned?
BP: He didn't realize coming on there that he wasn't going to be allowed to do his own style
of stuff. He didn't know he would get banned. Bo was just a down south guy, from Mississippi, he didn't
know the ways of the world. He knew no other style. If you hummed any song to him, when he played it, it would sound like his stuff. So you couldn't blame him for it. He was just being Bo. (Laughs) That's the stuff he learned as a kid down in Mississippi.
NHOR: Speaking of Bo, you also played on the recording of "Diddley Daddy" that was cut at
Chess Records in Chicago, which became one of his signature songs. What do you recall about
that session?
BP : Yeah. That was with that short guy on Maracas, Jerome Green. When I got to Chess
Records, I was really ga ga about that situation. Because I met everybody in the blues world. One thing
about that is that I was just a kid, but I was good, and I could play. We recorded a lot of tracks, and some of them didn't have any vocals on them. We just laid tracks down. I think Howlin' Wolf and everybody else came afterward and put words and vocals on those tracks. A lot of people. Bo Diddley did some, came in, and put vocals on tracks we did later on. He would make up tracks. He had a list of cliches, and hooks that he'd come up with, and he'd just stick them in and see if they'd work.
NHOR: So basically you and the band would go in, lay down the backing tracks, then the
vocalists would come down, lay down their parts, and you didn't know what songs they would be
for?
BP: Absolutely.
NHOR: What was that blues scene like during the 50's? Many of those people who played there at that time are legends now, but at the time they were just local artists, like any other scene....
BP : That's right. They were just scuffling along in life, trying to make a living, man. Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy, Jimmy Reed...I was on Vee Jay Records when I recorded "You Got What It Takes" in 1957.
(Sings) "You don't drive a big fine car...You don't look like a movie star"...That was my record, man. I
don't know what happened. I was just a kid, it got away from me. The Gordys took it.
NHOR: How does something like that happen? This is a song that you wrote, performed, and
recorded first, as the flip side to your first single "Blues Get Off My Shoulder", yet two years later the same exact song was released by Berry Gordy and recorded by Marv Johnson, who had a Top 10 hit with it, only instead of you being credited as the composer, it's listed as being written by Berry Gordy, Gwen Fuqua and Roquel Davis. You obviously wrote it, and recorded it....
BP: Yeah, with Paul Hucklebuck's band. They loved the song, and it just got away from me.
NHOR: How did you feel when you saw that your name wasn't listed as a composer?
BP: I just felt that it was a terrible tragedy. Because as a kid, young people like myself,
guitarists...We didn't know all the legalities. We were just trying to play music, man. And looking at young girls. (Laughs) The legalities of things just got by sometimes. I copyrighted it though.
NHOR: If you copyrighted it, then how could they get away with something like that? Things
must have been different back then, although in some cases are still the same..
BP: Tell me about it man. I don't get it. For years I've had litigation going on, but it's just carried on and on and on. I think that's the slick way to not pay you.
NHOR: The lost royalties on You Got What It Takes are considerable. I mean, Marv Johnson’s hit sold a million in 1959 in the USA and UK, with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates also having a minor hit there. The Dave Clark Five took it to No. 7 in the USA in 1967; and Showaddywaddy to No 2 in the UK in 1977. Many other artists including The Supremes and 4 Tops did their versions too.
All the hits bore the ‘Gordy’ credit and you never received a penny?
BP: No, not a cent.
NHOR: You also played with Chuck Berry. When you were with Chuck, were you
playing bass then?
BP: I played bass with Fats Domino's band. But I was playing guitar with everyone else. I
was playing guitar behind Chuck Berry. In those days a lot of those artists didn't carry their own small
bands. It's amazing how that system worked. This guy named Irving Feld put those big shows together
that came out every year. The rock n roll shows, with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Paul Anka, Annette
Funicello, all of them.
NHOR: Those were the package tours...
BP: Yeah the package tours. They came out of Charlotte, North Carolina, and New York.
They were great shows. I was on that show when Buddy Holly's plane went down, with The Big Bopper and that little Mexican cat who sang and played really well, Richie Valens. That really hurt us for about a week there. The show had to detour for a few days. Eventually, we got it back together and got back on the road.
NHOR: So you were on the tour the night Buddy Holly's plane went down.....
BP: Yeah man. They were telling those youngsters not to get on that plane. But they wanted
to go ahead and rest. We drove buses, and we got there later. But they wanted to hurry and get to the
next place. It was not good.
NHOR: What do you recall about that incident? Were you close at all with Buddy?
BP: Not really. Quiet as it's kept, they were just breaking the color barrier on those shows
also. With Frankie Avalon, and Fabian Forte. It did a lot to ease that out in rock n roll. They had Little
Richard,, Fats Domino, and all those cats. The kids would go berserk because it was beginning to get
mixed race-wise. That's the way it took off. It was Irving Feld. His family nowadays after all these years still owns Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. He's passed on, but his family still runs the circus. That was the family who started all the rock n roll shows
.
NHOR: I'd like to get into the recording of "Watch Your Step" which was released on V Tone in
1961, and has subsequently been a huge influence on many artists. Carlos Santana, Robin
Trower, and most notably, John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles have cited the song
as being an influence. In The Beatles' case, it inspired not only "I Feel Fine" but also "Day
Tripper". Jimmy Page took the riff for the Led Zeppelin song "Moby Dick". Did you have any idea when you were recording it that you were coming up with something that special?
BP: I had that thing in my mind for months. There was a really famous audio guy, his name
was Ed Green, who became really big-time after a few years in D.C. He said, "Bobby, this is Ed Green.
I've got new machines I just bought, about five or six Ampex machines. I'm putting up a studio, man. I
want you to come by here, bring your guitar, and I'll have a drummer here. I just want to hear how my
stuff sounds". The old Ampex two-track machines sounded so great, man. So thick and heavy. He had
about six of them sitting back to back. He knew how to bounce, and come back, without noise. This was in the early '60s, so multi-tracking was just getting started. Ed Green was amazing.
I used to go over there and fool around, and I had this song in my mind. (Sings the "Watch Your Step" riff)
Like that, you know? He said, "Whoa I like this lick, man!". I had a young boy who was a drummer who used to hang around with me, and we laid the track down. It took me months before I figured out what words were going to go along with that. I was just trying Ed Green's stuff out at the time, and we really came up with some good little tunes then, man. He was trying out his new Ampex machines, and I was just having fun. (Laughs)
NHOR: What sort of equipment were you using during those recordings, in terms of guitars and
amps?
BP: I'm pretty sure I was using all Fenders. I love Fender stuff. I had Strats and Telecasters
at that time.
NHOR: What kind of amps were you using?
BP: Back in those days, in the 60's, amps were small. I used to group up three or four little
amps that looked like radios, and I'd start finagling around. Like now, I feel my sound is amazing. The
tone that I like is thick and fat. I use preamps now to get it, and it's just huge.
NHOR: You're using Fenders now too, aren't you? At least a Fender cabinet?
BP: Yeah, that's a Fender Twin, but it's really pushed up, man. With preamps and all that
stuff. When I was onstage with Joe, I had no idea that he was going to push up, and play as hard as we
were doing. Because I had some other amps out there that I was going to bring in. Luckily I got a pretty
good sound going down at the Lisner Auditorium.
"
"Bobby Parker is a criminally underrated blues guitarist. His playing is full of fire and passion." - Joe Bonamassa
I've always liked Gibson Flying V's too though. I took a Flying V and cut it down. I'm kind of a small cat, I
don't weigh any more than about 135, 140 pounds maybe. So I took a big, heavy Flying V, cut the ends
off of it, and it looks really slick. That's what I used when I played with Joe. I cut it down and put great big
bass frets on it, with Gibson pickups, and it really sings man. I took the neck to a cabinet maker who
scaled it down and made it small for me, because it was too wide, and it's just perfect.
NHOR: Speaking of guitars, didn't you have one of the first Stratocasters ever made?
BP: Let me tell you a story about Fender. My dad took me, when I was 15, to the first Fender
factory in Fullerton, California. That's where I was going to school, at Manual Arts and Dorsey High
School. The first Fender factory was just a little auto shop where they started repairing guitars before
they started making them. They got into it, and it got so good for them. I didn't know who Leo Fender was when we went there. We were just going to this little shop. It was just a little room with a greasy floor. That was in the early 50's. I got a guitar there, set up like I wanted it. At that time I was B.B. King crazy. It was one of the first Strats made, ever.
NHOR: You recently sat in with Joe Bonamassa at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C.
What was that like for you?
BP: He was right on target, with real players. He can sing his ass off, he's amazing.
Bonamassa, he's a nice guy. I'm amazed at him. He comes up, defies all the negatives, and puts people
up there with him. I was very impressed with him.
NHOR: Did you and Joe talk about doing any further collaborations of any sort in the future?
BP: I'd love to do that man. I stood out there afterward, between 40 minutes to an hour
signing things. In D.C, I've been around here for years, so a lot of them knew me. When I stepped out
there, and Joe introduced me, they said, "Oh...Bobby, that guy!" (Laughs) People were screaming. They
knew me as a powerhouse around here in D.C. And it's all because of that one song, "Steal Your Heart
Away" that Joe was so nice to have me come down there and play with him.
NHOR: You have an association with Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page. What do you recall about
that?
BP: Page came over here in the '70s and said, "I'm trying to find Bobby Parker". People
started calling me. I'd answer the phone and they'd say, "Hey Bobby, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is looking for you. He wants to talk to you about something". (Laughs) I said, "Cool man, tell him to call this number". They said, "Okay, I didn't know if it was okay to give your number out". So Jimmy called me and asked me, "Bobby, where are you playing?" I said, "I'm doing an army base military, an NCO club". Just gigging, trying to make a living, man. It was over in Ft. Myer, Virginia, near D.C.
Page said, "Hey, I'm coming over there in about a week. Will you be playing then?" I said, "Yeah, I'm
playing next Thursday and Friday over there". He said, "I'm going to fly in, come in there and surprise
you". I said, "That would be marvelous".
So we went on with the gig, and I kind of didn't believe it. We were doing the gig, playing the blues like
crazy, and some guy whispered to me up on the bandstand, "Bobby, somebody from England is here to
see you. His name is Page, Jimmy Page. He's sitting here in the back of the club".
I said, "Oh man". I stopped that song right away, and just cut the song off. (Laughs) I said, "Ladies and
gentlemen, we have a surprise here in the club tonight. Let's get Jimmy Page up here to say a few words. Maybe he might want to play a little guitar". He was sitting in the back of the club, smiling, and he put his hands up. He had two or three people with him. He didn't want to come up. He said, "We're just gonna watch you tonight and just enjoy the show". So he never came up.
NHOR: So he never came up and played with you that night?
BP: No, he wouldn't come up.
NHOR: In the Led Zeppelin biography 'Hammer of the Gods" by Stephen Davis', it describes that night a bit differently, where Jimmy came up and jammed a blues song with you and the band. So that didn't happen, is that correct?
BP: That's not true. He never got out of his seat.
NHOR: Jimmy Page was at one time very keen to sign you to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label in
the early 70s. In fact, it's said that he advanced you $2,000 to record demos, which at the time was
a lot more than it is today. It's said that those never were finished. What happened?
BP: What happened was, there's a huge music store out here in D.C. called Chuck Levin's.
It's a big, huge music store. Somebody from London called me and asked, "Is this Bobby Parker?" I said, "Yes". He said, "I work with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin". I said, "That's great. I saw him here about a month ago". He told me, "Jimmy wants you to go out to Chuck Levin's Music in your area and pick up a recorder. It's already paid for, all you have to do is pick it up". It was a Teac 4 track, 3340S Reel to Reel. It was a really good recorder. I still have it. It doesn't have any heads in it, but it's a good conversation piece.
So I went out there and picked it up, and started making up songs, licks, and stuff. They were telling me to come over to England. One of the tunes Jimmy liked was "It's Hard But It's Fair". I had about four or five others, but that particular one was the best one they liked I guess. Something happened, I don't know what. We never had any bad words. But something just kind of went by the wayside.
NHOR: During your time in the UK, as musicians do, I'm sure you went out and checked the
bands out who were playing the scene at the time. Were there any who particularly impressed you
during that time?
BP: In 1968 or '69, I played at the Royal Albert Hall. I looked right down in the front row, and
who was sitting there? Eric Clapton. Looking up at me. (Laughs) I couldn't hardly tell because the lights were so bright. I was playing the show, and someone said to me, "Clapton's sitting right down there with The Cream". I said, "Whoa man, that's cool". So they invited him back after I got offstage at the Albert Hall, and we had a great time chatting and stuff like that. And that was the end of it. I never saw him after that.
"Bobby Parker is one of the originators of the guitar solo as we know it today." - Eric Clapton
NHOR: When you were over in the UK in the '60s, you used to have a lot of guitarists who
subsequently were considered legends come out to see you, not only Clapton but Peter Green,
and Jeff Beck, trying to figure out your technique, and how you were playing the songs...
BP,: Oh yeah, all over. They wanted me to break my guitars over there, set the stage on fire
and all that kind of stuff. I wasn't used to that. I guess they got that from Hendrix and all those people who did that. So maybe they were a little disappointed that I didn't break up my guitars. I only had two nice guitars at that time. I wasn't going to break them up. (Laughs)
NHOR: You've known Carlos Santana, whom you appeared with on the 'Live At Montreux' DVD
since he was 14 years old. He has been a big supporter of you and has said of you. "He's one of
the few remaining guitarists on this planet who can pierce your heart and soothe your soul. He
inspired me to play guitar". How did you meet Carlos?
BP: I was on the show when Paul Hucklebuck's band went to Mexico City. We did a really big
show there. He came backstage and he met me. That was way back when he was young, man. This was
back in the early 60's.
NHOR: What was it like playing with Carlos in Montreux?
BP: That was with Buddy Guy, him and me, and Gatemouth Brown. It was really great man.
He had the hotel room all swanked out for me, with nice flowers. He's a nice guy like that. I wish he'd call me sometime. I'd love to do another show with him.
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