Patti Parks, Acclaimed Blues Singer Has A New Album
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Meet Patti Parks. She is a blues singer that a few people have heard of but most have not. They should. ” I’ve been the music business for a very long time. I changes the type of music I was performing. I started around 16 years old and I set my sights on being a classical musician. But one thing that kept haunting me was that I really liked to sing,” she said. She continued, ” At 16 I started playing the cello. As time went on, after some life experience, I met up with an individual that was in my first band. He asked me if I was still singing and I told him no. He said if I put a microphone in front of you I’ll bet you will be all over it. He was right and he is also my current husband,” Parks said.
She released her debut album called Cheat’n Man. Her new album is called :Whole ‘Nother World”. In between this she has performed in many major blues festivals, like Blues ‘n March Festival, Ellicottville Blues Festival, Niagara Thunder, Kalamazoo Music Festival, Blues in the Valley, Wellsville Creative Art Center, She is also a working nurse. She developed a program called Nurse N Blues which helps people with chemical dependency. This program uses music therapists to help people with self esteem issues. “I’ve been doing this for quite a while and have probably saved close to 1600 people,” Parks said.
She is near Buffalo New York and is also near Canada. She had played in Canada prior to the pandemic. She looks forward to getting back out on stage. “During COVID, it affected so many people in different ways. Not only having the disease, but the isolation,” Parks said. Currently, she is not playing around this area, but as things start to open up more and more, that could change.
You can learn more about her here.