THOM PARROTT
Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Actor, Playwrite
"Thom" as in "tom-cat" -- "Parrott" like the bird.
Thom Parrott (aka Tom Parrott) is a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist with over thirty years of performing folk, blues, country and rock-n-roll. He has shared the stage with such luminaries as Pete Seeger, Bo Diddley and Janis Ian and has accompanied poet Alan Ginsberg. Thom has two albums out on the prestigious Folkways label. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, as an unscheduled act at the Newport and Philadelphia Folk Festivals, and at a vast array of coffee houses, night clubs, schools, senior centers, private parties and concert halls as well as on TV and radio. Thom has written a couple of hundred songs in a wide range of styles and also performs an eclectic mix of covers. Mr. Parrott has been written about in many publications, including The New York Times, and has never received a bad review.
Thom Parrott was born in Washington, D.C., in 1944 and can't remember not singing. His first instruments were piano and clarinet, but his commitment to music came with his parents gift of a guitar in 1959. He began writing two years later, first performing in public at about the same time. In 1963-4, Thom attended Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, where he performed with the folk trio The Farlanders and with a theater company mixing songs, including some he had written alone or with Susan Foster, with stories from Spoon River Anthology.
In September, 1964, Thom moved to New York City, where he was soon discovered by the publishers of Broadside Magazine, Sis Cunningham (a member of The Almanac Singers) and Gordon Friesen. They printed several of Thom's songs in Broadside and included him in concerts at the Village Gate and, in 1967, at Carnegie Hall. It was here that Moses Asch, owner of Folkways Records (now Smithsonian Folkways) asked Thom to record for him. In its review of the first of these recordings, Billboard Magazine referred to Thom as "one of the new wunderkind."
In 1968, Thom was an unscheduled performer at the Newport Folk Festival, playing in both the New Folks Concert and the Blues Workshop. The East Village Other praised his performance, linking him with Eric Von Schmidt as the only "urban folk musicians" at the Festival that year.
A turning point in Mr. Parrott's writing came when he was invited to perform at a benefit for the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 1971. The song he wrote for the event was his first successful attempt to mix humor with a serious message and a sing-along chorus -- "Hudson's Name Was Henry, But The River Is A John." Since then, Thom has produced a number of what one critic called "his strange rag-time originals" and he has had a lot more fun on stage.
After moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Thom taught guitar, harmonica and jug band at the University of New Mexico. The jug band class, taught with Steve Wilkes, turned into The Watermelon Mountain Jug Band. Now led by Jeff Burrows, TWMJB has become a popular Albuquerque tradition.
Thom's song about a Welsh mining disaster which killed 132 children and eight of their teachers, "The Aberfan Coaltip Tragedy" was the title song for an LP by the Danish folk group Paddy Doyles. Country singer Randy Rhodes had a chart record with Mr. Parrott's "Teardrops On Tap." He won a song-writing award from The American Song Festival for his "Vasectomy Rag."
While guitar is his primary instrument, Thom also plays harmonica, keyboards and bass.
Thom is an award winning playwright and an experienced stage and TV actor. He was the producer, sound man, host and occasional talent for the public television program "Musician." He was a disc jockey on radio station KUNM. Mr. Parrott has written or co-written songs for several stage plays. He was a member of the improvisational theater company Phantasmagoria. Using the pen name "T. O. Dawes," Thom co-wrote the award winning stage play "The Murder Game" with A. A. MacGregor.
ONE SONG ON THE SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS ALBUM
Order today: Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records by Peter D. Goldsmith. Erroneously says Tom's LPs were "vanity records" -- in fact, Moe saw Tom at Carnegie Hall, invited him to record on Folkways and paid him to do so.
SONGS INCLUDED IN THE BOOKS
The Vietnam Songbook; Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber; The Guardian, New York, 1969.
I Hear America Singing; Hazel Arnett; Prager Publishers, New York, 1975.
SONGS INCLUDED IN THE PLAYS
"The Nina, the Pinta and the Cesar Romero" by Jeff Hudson
"Arroyo Repo" by Jim Graebner
ACTING EXPERIENCE INCLUDES
Juan The Puppet Master in "The Nina, the Pinta and the Cesar Romero"
The Janitor and the College Professor in "Blue Plate Special"
Over 100 performances with Phantasmagoria Improvisational Theater
DETAILED INDEX
© 1997 parrott@nmia.com
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hits since September 20, 1998.
BLESSED BE!