“Soul Blues & Ballads” is dedicated to the life of blues legends Koko Taylor, Katie Webster and Ruth Brown. It is about relationships that have deeply affected my life and my heart. I have always been inspired by their strong, sassy, tortured and storytelling blues. These women paved the way for me to write about my heartaches and expose my woundedness. They created safe passage for me to reveal myself. Now, when I write about my love life, I allow myself to be vulnerable, to share and to even purge my feelings. That way, I am reaching a deeper self - a deeper soul. Historically, my core issues were much about betrayal, abandonment, deception and trust in relationships.

After a few trips down memory lane, I remember writing and singing “blues is a healer!” in “The Walking Wounded”. Soul Blues & Ballads are jewels and compositions born out of my love life experiences. These songs have offered me great solace and an outlet for expressing my pain. They were carefully wrapped around songs on eight (8) different CDs of up-tempo, driving, Chicago blues and high energy rock n’ blues. They span almost two decades of expressing my love, my lessons, my losses, having to let go and live on. It heals to write and sing my blues!

In the early 1990s, I was listening to the KUSP radio and heard Katie Webster sing her “Pussycat Moan”. I immediately ran out and purchased her CD on Alligator Records. In the insert, there is a mention of a guitar player named Vasti Jackson. Vasti was Katie’s producer and musical director. Using my recruiting skills, I hired Vasti as a producer and guitarist on my first CD, “Get Out My Way!” I was compelled to record the song “Pussycat Moan”. We talked for hours, sharing stories about life, blues traditions, and the distinction between US and European audiences. Vasti encouraged me to listen to great blues women such as Katie Webster, Koko Taylor, Ruth Brown, Irma Thomas, and Etta James.

I remember the first time I heard Etta James, I got scared. To me, she sounded like me. However, in reality I sounded much like her. I had to stop listening to Ms. James to maintain my own voice and phrasing. I did! Although, people still today compare me to her.

As a guest producer, I recall Vasti saying to my band “You must realize that Sista Monica is “The New Blues Lioness”. That was the first time I heard this phrase. Those were the days when we were performing songs primarily for corporate events like MacWorld, Oracle, George Lucas’s corporate Christmas party, some club dates and weddings. I was covering AL Green’s, Love & Happiness, Aretha Franklin’s Baby I Love You and James Brown’s Sex Machine. Then I got more mature and started writing from my soul.

Soon after Vasti left for Mississippi, I entrusted Danny “B” to be my arranger and collaborator. We worked on arrangements and concepts for original songs together. Danny “B” encouraged me to stop listening to others and to write something personal – something real from my heart. Although I had written songs for the first CD, it wasn’t until my second CD – SISTA MONICA that I began to fully appreciate writing my own compositions. I learned the vast difference between “covering a tune” and “writing a song”. I wrote about decisions and many consequences of placing career over personal relationships.

Sometimes I was the victim and sometimes I was the culprit in my music. This is especially true on songs featuring the masterful blues guitar man Chris Cain on “Leave the Door Open” and “I Don’t Want To Hurt You Baby”. Danny “B” listened to my stories behind the scenes. We toiled over 12 bar blues changes and arrangements to accompany my lyrics on many songs. But it was his contemporary R&B and jazz styling’s that wrote and produced “Behind My Back” with Skylark, Ron E. Beck and Tony Lindsay on background vocals.

One of my most memorable experiences was when I wrote about heartbreak, a fresh wound during a relationship. I remember taking a long car ride that culminated in asking me asking myself “How Long Does It Take?” (To get over someone you love). This was the ballad that confirmed that I was a blues singer with gospel roots. How Long?… was an entire song that channeled through me one Sunday afternoon while sitting on a cliff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, California. I was talking to myself, humming a melody, crying to the waves. I started singing out loud. All of a sudden, the sounds of background vocals, Hammond B3 organ, and drums came to me. I had that yearning to know, so I begged the question – singing “How Long Does It Take?”

So many memories and so many lessons! As in the song “Honey, It’s Your Fault”. As an artist, I realize that the music all has to come out. Writing, singing, producing and performing blues and soul music has offered a safe haven for me to live and heal inside the lyrics and the stories. I might write some special ballads again in my life. However, I would hope that I can live my life vicariously through someone else instead of experiencing the pain it took to write from my own love life mistakes, challenges and lessons. But then again, “Never Say Never” 

Love Sista Monica Parker