ABOUT WAYNE PARKER
Wayne Parker is a singer-songwriter, musician and recording artist from Seattle, Washington. He has been singing and playing guitar in bands and on his own since his early teens, but also spent decades working in high tech as a computer programmer, database expert, IT manager and director, before retiring from professional life in 2019.
In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he began writing and recording original songs, after first having learned the rudiments of music recording in a home studio. That led to the release of his first original song, Fire on the Hill, in June 2021, along with a music video. Since then, he has released six more singles with videos, and will release his first album, Strangers, in the early fall of 2023.
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Wayne's songs and songwriting are strongly influenced by the sounds of 1960s and 1970s classic rock, but he also blends elements from many other musical genres, especially folk and folk rock, country, Americana and power pop into his own unique personal sound.
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His great love as an instrumentalist is the guitar in all its forms, including electric and acoustic guitars in both 6-string and 12-string models. He writes and plays almost all of the guitar parts in his songs. He has also started to play and record with other instruments, including the electric bass, the ganjo (a 6-string banjo tuned like a guitar), and the harmonica.
Wayne sings the lead vocals and most of the backup vocals on his songs. He loves the sound of voices singing in harmony, and recently has been thrilled to begin adding other talented singers to his recordings. Similarly, he has begun to include instrumental collaborators (on piano, bass and guitar) in some of his latest songs, to extend the sound and dynamic range of his music.
In the course of releasing his first three songs (with music videos), Wayne also became interested in video production, and has since produced the music and lyric videos for his new releases. He continues to learn more about the art of creating videos, including a recent and ongoing foray into drone photography and videography.
In addition to his artistic and professional activities, Wayne has accumulated a long list of other interests and life experiences over the years, including being married, raising children, sailing, flying light aircraft, collecting and customizing guitars, coaching and playing soccer, traveling, reading voraciously, writing and blogging occasionally, and having the good fortune to be part of a wonderful extended community of family and friends.
Wayne never knows which of his memories, or which item from the daily news or world events will end up shaping the narrative of a new song, but he loves the process of writing and telling stories (real and imagined) through music. He is currently considering forming a band and playing his music live in the near future.