Mel Parsons "Over my Shoulder" 2009

“Bloody-mindedness” is what Mel Parsons attributes to her decade-long success as an independent artist. Parsons’ catalogue has been described as folk, alternative folk, and country, but she doesn’t care about labels anymore.
Growing up on a beef and sheep farm on the West Coast of the South Island, music was on “on the periphery” for Parsons, the first musician to come from the family. The stereo was often on in the background, playing the major records of the time or maybe something a little more obscure, if the record was a gift. Parsons names Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Dire Straits and Cat Stevens as some of artists that lodged into her subconscious as a child...
...All four Parsons siblings took piano lessons from a young age, but it never turned into a passion for Mel, and she doesn’t consider herself a piano player. “It’s annoying, I had so many lessons,” she told AudioCulture in late 2021. “I should be amazing!”
Instead, the lessons became a grounding for the guitar, which she picked up at 14 and immediately connected to. “That was it, I got really hooked on guitar. It’s the classic story, I started writing songs in my bedroom. They were pretty forgettable and thank goodness there was no social media to record it at the time.”
It wasn’t until her late teens that she began to think of music as a career path. After leaving high school, her years of tertiary study in music included stints at (the then) Nelson School of Music, MAINZ in Auckland and the University of Auckland, peppered with gap years working in Australia and teaching music. She quickly learnt she didn’t enjoy teaching and ruled it out early. Parsons eventually graduated with a music degree, which stirs mixed feelings for her.
“I still find it quite weird to be honest, being a songwriter with a music degree,” she reflects in 2021. “There’s such a deconstruction of the songwriting process, and I’m just not that kind of writer.”
Leaving Auckland in her early twenties, she travelled, worked, and gigged overseas, spending most of her time in Canada. In the winter months she was a ski instructor, and in the summers, a tree planter (“the hardest work you’ll ever do”). She often played acoustic gigs in the ski lodge bars, but at the time it just felt like “mucking around”.
“It’s funny, I was obviously a musician, and playing gigs before I left Auckland, but because I hadn’t released anything I still felt like I wasn’t a proper musician.”
After six years away, Parsons’ life changed in an instant when she and her New Zealand partner were involved in a car accident on a highway in Canada. Her long-time partner died, and she returned to New Zealand with an intense new perspective...to be continued... - audioculture

trax:
1. Still Life 2. It's Been Good 3. Darlin' Darlin' 4. Pleasure & Pai 5. Against the Tide 6. Song For Mrs King 7. On Your Grave 8. Falling For You 9. Far Fetched Idea 10. Down in the Bar 11. You & I
…served by Gaius…