From: "Doug Bright" <75366.2463@compuserve.com> To: Subject: Article: January, 1982 Date: Friday, April 15, 2005 2:33 PM L.V. PARR: A LIVING LEGEND FROM BLUES HISTORY By Doug Bright From HERITAGE MUSIC REVIEW: January, 1982 You may be one of those who considers himself or herself a fairly knowledgeable blues fan. If you've lived here for any length of time, you may think you know just about everything there is to know about the Seattle blues scene. Well, so did I. Then I discovered, to my utter astonishment, that I had missed out on the greatest and most time-honored blues figures in all of Seattle history. Elvin "L.V." Parr is something of a legend, especially here in Seattle where there are relatively few of them. Originally from Arkansas, he got his start on KOST Radio in the town of Osceola. Beginning in 1948 the series was aired frequently. The band was the In The Groove Boys and spawned, in addition to Parr, a blues guitarist by the name of Albert Nelson, but you'd probably be more familiar with him under the current stage name of Albert King. Arkansas in the late Forties was fertile soil for growing bluesmen, and the blues scene was characterized by plenty of friendly musical exchange. B.B. King, whose band was doing a similar gig in a nearby town, appeared frequently on the Groove Boys' show. As the radio show continued, Parr's reputation grew. Unlike many of his peers, he could play swing as well as blues, a fact which worked to his advantage. As rhythm-and-blues superstars came through town on tours, they had a chance to listen to the young guitarist, and they liked what they heard. By 1955 when the Groove Boys broke up, Parr had worked with Percy Mayfield, Johnny Ace, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. Meanwhile, the Seattle area was beginning to develop some action of its own. Most of the activity in those early days of R&B centered around Broadway in Tacoma and the downtown area of Seattle, with clubs all along Pike Street and First Avenue. Don Osias (organ) and Lester Exkano (drums) started out with saxophonist Frank Roberts in a band called the Untouchables. The group could frequently be heard at the Roll In Tavern on the corner of Seventh and Pine. "Back then I was takin' home about eighty dollars a week," Don reminisces. "That would be comparable to about 200 to 250 now, but we were workin' six nights a week." At the same time, another band was establishing itself. The Playboys had been together since high school, and in 1959 they were working the Drift In at Fifth and Pike. "There's a fur store there now," says Don somewhat wistfully. It was at this high point of musical history that L.V. Parr, who had put in his time with some of the best people in the business, came to Seattle and joined the Playboys at the Drift In. Here in this musical community he found the same friendly interchange as in rural Arkansas a decade earlier. The bands were doing so much trading of personnel back and forth that it seems just about impossible to construct an orderly history of any one of them. At some point in this scramble of bands, musicians, and clubs, Don and Lester joined Parr in the Playboys in about 1960 or '61. The band continued to work such landmarks as the Roll In, the Caballero, and the Ridge, and the Playboy name was retained until about 1966. "We were all getting a little older," says Don, and by this time the music scene was undeniably changing. Don left for California, but everyone else stayed, alternating between performance and retirement. The taverns were characterized by hard-driving blues and female imports from the Orient who hustled the sailors for alcohol and other sensual pleasures. The scene, though colorful, was surprisingly peaceful, and the rare skirmishes that did erupt were quelled by the management immediately if not sooner. Still there was plenty of talk, and the city fathers decided it was time for some housecleaning. Armed with the force of law, the self-appointed guardians of public decency all but destroyed a thriving music scene under the battle cry of "urban renewal". The phrase had a nice sound, but in concrete terms it meant that the sword hung by a thin thread over every club on the Avenue. The dirty work was done by a heavy-handed and highly selective application of fine print. "They'd send the Fire Department down, and if they found an electric cord in the aisle they'd bust you for fire hazard," Don Osias recalls. Consequently, the number of clubs on First Avenue had diminished significantly by the late Seventies. There were still a few places left to play, though, and the camaraderie among musicians remained strong. Don returned from California, and L.V. joined up with the Don McNeff Blues Band. "The money wasn't fabulous," Don Osias reminisces, "but it was a place where we could go with our groggy heads to play." With such a long-standing friendship and so many shared experiences, it was only a matter of time before L.V. Parr, Don Osias, and Lester Exkano would be working together again. It was this historic configuration of musicians, this living chapter from history, that I had the pleasure of hearing recently at the Old Timer's Caf`e in Pioneer Square. L.V. Parr Today Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never even heard of L.V. Parr. I knew only that he was a venerable black blues guitarist of the old school. What I heard as I walked into the Old Timer's Caf`e was not blues, but a nice rendition of that great old jazz standard "Body and Soul". In general, Parr's approach to both swing and blues is simple and direct, placing the emphasis on melody where it belongs. Organist Don Osias is as authentic and tasteful a keyboard man as you'll find anywhere, and his rich harmony perfectly accents Parr's lyrical guitar style. As a soloist, his style, like Parr's, is clean and melodic, with no excesses or concessions to rock modernism. Don't get me wrong: he can spread his wings and fly when he chooses, but these flights of fantasy are the exception rather than the rule and only serve to provide an interesting contrast to his normal mode. The band doesn't use a bass: the Hammond B-3 does the job quite adequately. The rhythm section is completed by the quiet but authoritative drumming of Lester Exkano. This band's repertoire is characterized by mellow but very compelling slow blues, irresistibly rhythmic up-tempo shuffles, and some real no-nonsense blues vocals done mostly by L.V. himself. Lester's voice, somewhat thinner than Parr's, is soulful and expressive, but so unassumingly natural as to make the job look easy. This is evidenced by a rendition of "Money" that sounds as fresh as Barrett Strong's original. "Louie Louie", a tune that's been worn threadbare by every bad mid-Sixties rock band in the world, is taken at a moderate reggae tempo and sung by the drummer with the same vitality as the other selections. The moral of the story is this: If you want to hear the real thing, if you want to see a page of history burst into life before your own eyes and ears, L.V. Parr's band is a phenomenon you don't dare miss. ----------------------------------------