This one’s for Bruce : CONCERT TO BENEFIT LOCAL PIANO PLAYER
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
Pardon Bruce Parker if he does not get back to you right away.
Leave your name after the beep and he’ll put you on the list of the those to call. It may take some time, though. Over the last couple of days, that list has grown dramatically as friends and family alike have perpetually called his Fayetteville apartment looking to hear the latest news.
“ I love that they’re concerned but sometimes you don’t have anything to tell them, ” Parker said. “ They all mean well. I’m blessed. ”
Ask any of his friends and they’ll tell you that a rather soft-spoken and quiet individual rests inside his wiry, 6-foot-4 and-a-half frame. For the majority of his career as a 43-year-old professional musician, Parker has let his fingers do the talking on his favorite medium: a piano. These days, he, his family and friends are counting partly on music to help save him from a case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma lodged in his left lung, a condition that was revealed two weeks ago. A call to perform Like many area musicians with no other full-time day jobs, Parker does not have any health insurance. Although Hodgkin’s lymphoma is highly treatable and the needed resources such as the Highlands Oncology Group are available locally, the money to fund such an effort is “ outrageously high, ” in the words of Parker, adding that one test can easily cost thousands of dollars.
To help offset some of the upcoming medical costs, a benefit concert is being held for Parker at 2 p. m. May 18 at the newly opened Drifters, the club, in Fayetteville. All door proceeds will go to help Parker help scale the impending mountain of bills. For his entire career, Parker has played for numerous benefit and charity concerts. Now the shoe’s on the other foot.
“ Yeah, it’s really weird. I’m usually playing for somebody else, ” he said.
One of the bands scheduled to perform is the one Parker plays in, Jamie Wolfe & The Wranglers. Parker is not sure if he’ll be able to be there, depending on how he feels with the upcoming treatments, which most likely will involve chemotherapy.
It was Wolfe and fellow band member Brad Roberts who originally came with the idea for a concert, knowing the impact the keyboardist has made on the local music community.
“ He’s such a pleasure to be around all the time, ” Wolfe said. “ Whether there’s 500 people or five people [at a show ] he’s the same way as he walked in there: in a good mood. ”
Parker started playing piano when he was 6. His mother, Jean Hale, would teach piano lessons, Parker would sit in the next room and do his best impression of a sponge, soaking up songs with the greatest of ease — minus traditional sheet music.
“ I was just inspired by music probably by birth, ” Parker said. “ As far as the piano goes, I just got on it and started playing so [his mother ] realized there was something there.
“ We tried the lesson thing and that didn’t work out but she saw how I was just going, so she didn’t try to force me. She just let me go. ” ‘ From heart to fingers ’ While stationed in front of a Yamaha baby grand piano, Parker began to play a blues piece with no particular name. Instead of being guided by notes, his fingers responded to a different impetus. Perhaps it was the piano itself, which used to sit in his mother’s house until she passed away in January 2007 after he provided home care for her for five years. Or maybe it’s a photo of the two, which rests atop the piano and serves as a focal point of his living room.
“ I just feel it kind of by emotion and by ear, ” he said. “ From heart to fingers pretty much. ”
“ He listens to it one time and he’s on it, ” Wolfe said of his band mate’s ability. “ If he hears it, he gets it. ”
Although Parker has played with just about every accomplished musician in the fourstate area at concerts, recording sessions and improvisational jams, he got his start while playing with longtime friend Darren Ray in a band called “ Fantasy” while in eighth grade at Woodland Junior High. The band went on to win a string of talent shows, reaffirming to Parker and Ray that music would be their livelihoods. Ray will perform with several bands at the benefit show, including his self-named group as well as Big Bad Bubba and the Big ’Uns.
“ Other than being a great player, he’s a great harmony singer and just one of the nicest guys you’ll meet, ” Ray said of Parker. “ I don’t think he has an enemy out there. ”
He does, though, have many friends who have come to his aid after years of calling him in a moment’s notice to record a song or play a gig, which is the main reason he has never considered getting a day job. Chances are when his ’ 92 Chevy Cavalier is sitting in a parking lot, his trusted synthesizer is on the back seat ready to be played.
“ I realize that a lot of the people that I’m blessed to know was through music, but I didn’t realize how many until now, ” Parker said. “ Right now, I’m finding out how many people I’ve touched with my music. ”
As far as his future plans, he’s going to do something he’s already an expert at: playing it by ear.
“ I’d like to think that everything will work out and I’ll get back to playing, ” he said. “ That’s my plan. ”
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