Graham Parker - BBC Live In Concert (marked/ltd stock) - CD

There are other live documents of England's quintessential angry young (at heart) man, but they mostly focus on a specific era of Graham Parker's career. This disc culls live material from a few different sources over the span of 14 years, providing listeners with a good idea of Parker's artistic trajectory. Both popular and critical opinion hold that Parker's salad days were his late '70s/early '80s outings with the Rumour, so we're fortunate that this period gets the lion's share of attention on BBC LIVE IN CONCERT.

Parker's R&B roots are most evident in the earliest cuts, "Hold Back the Night" and "Soul Shoes." The batch of tracks that follow, including material from his masterpiece SHOOTING OUT SPARKS, find his music at its most concentrated and intense. The stinging guitar riffs of Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont, driven by the relentless-but-precise drums of Steve Goulding, power Parker's most visceral, passionate tunes. By the time we get to '90s tracks such as "They Murdered the Clown" and "My Love's Strong," Parker seems to have mellowed slightly, taking on the rock gentleman veneer, but this just serves to put the scope of his career into focus.