While there is an undeniable power to live music -- communion between musician and audience counting for something considerable -- the truth is most artists are better presented by their recordings than by their shows. Let us testify that Parker Millsap is not a part of that group.
In fact, having just caught him for the second time at the Oxford American's South on Main venue (we had to miss one of his shows there and regret it bitterly), we are tempted to drag out the superlatives. Is there a better young blues singer -- a better young singer, period?
We hear something unholy and pure in that voice that recalls Gasoline Alley-era Rod Stewart in its lower register, the plaintive Robert Plant higher up and Roy Dadgum Orbison when it shimmers into falsetto. A first encore (signaled by a mere feint stage left) take on Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Gotta Move" was genuinely shiver-inducing, and if music was a competition (which, contrary to the mindset installed by the producers of reality shows, it is not) it might compel Mr. Michael Jagger to rethink his life choices.
Goodness, this fresh-faced son of a Pentecostal minister can sing.
And he's savvy about where he and the folk/blues/country/rock 'n' roll music he loves comes from -- his show was no less instructive than 16 hours of classy Ken Burns-ian prestige documentary at distilling for you the friction between the sacred and profane that sparks all deeply American music. In another time, with another business model, Millsap might have been an Elvisian figure, a pretty, white boy with talent and empathy enough to communicate the universal concerns of ordinary folk. It's our own fault the authentic presents as slightly archaic and antique these days. But then maybe you have to be there to understand how real and serious this stuff can get.
Maybe the digitation scoops out the spooky-ooky overtones.
His songs are good and getting better, and he can pull off lines like, "Torn apart, my spirits spent/ I fell in love on accident/Wondered just what Jesus meant" in his "Heaven Sent." And his band can get sludgy-sexy without going muddy with the lyrics, "Gimme that old-time religion, gimme that James Brown precision."
Daniel Foulks played rhythm fiddle and lead violin, often at the same time, and showed he also knew his way around a gold-top Les Paul. Bassist Michael Rose and drummer Andy Bones did no more than they had to do and did it perfectly. Millsap played a lot more electric guitar than he did the last time I saw him; it suits him.
I don't know if they recorded the show or not; and though the sound was perfect where I was sitting, I don't know if that hypothetical recording could have captured all the jazz and jive flowing through the air. But if they did and it did, I know what you could call the record if they decided to put it out: Exile on South Main Street.
Metro on 09/19/2019