This is me singing in a character. The character is a busking, scallywag, Huckleberry Finn type of character(not a million miles from the reality?).
Recorded in Herefordshire at Broadoak Studios. All recorded live. Playing a bass drum on the recording, the first time I played with one in one-man band style.

Ramblin' Is My Way

An older song I recorded for my first EP. An early attempt at slide guitar, which I was pleased with. Written shall we say from the perspective of a lost, frustrated country boy in the London metropolis (I lived there 2008-2010 as a music student; found career progress slow). Trumpet solo by the excellent Alex Gordon of Citizen Fish. Hear the chime bells buried in the mix at start of the chorus...

Serenade Of Fate

A song I started writing on the plane to the USA. I was struck I suppose by how friendly the airline staff were and certainly felt I was embarking on a new chapter in life. The song was played live for some time before it came to it's current lyrical form, only about two weeks before it was recorded in November 2012.  Particularly proud I hadn't forgotten how to play the piano.

Flying For The Sun

I have had a lot of insight into a seemingly alternate universe as a busker! This song is dedicated to two different guys I met. Both slightly far-out, flawed characters but charming and actually good, dedicated buskers who taught me a thing or two. And also my big philosophical statement on this EP and on 'my generation', like, 'how do we escape our reputation as one dogged by unemployment, dependence and exploitation'? Busking offered me a way out.

Ragged Foot Soldiers Of Popular Song

One of my first clutch of solo songs. Concerning rural boredom, isolation & desperation. Performed with the excellent Jonny James on electric guitar, a fellow Golden Valley Herefordshire boy. Recorded live, with electric guitar amp in the corridor. Cowbells overdubbed.

Hey Cow

A great blues song I have long loved by Muddy Waters. Bit of a shoddy take here, I suppose I was just warming up (on a cold January afternoon...). Recorded in Liverpool by the boys there from SAE (Sound Audio Engineering) college.

Can't Be Satisfied (Muddy Waters) - recorded live busking on Bold Street, Liverpool

I was approached by three SAE music college students on a cold January Wednesday afternoon. They were doing street recordings as part of their course so I got me some free recordings. The crowd dug this one...

Hey Cow - recorded live busking on Bold Street, Liverpool

About me: My influences & inspirations are Dylan, The Stones, Fred Neil, Bert Jansch, Bruce Springsteen. I have been doing the acoustic guitar & harmonica thing for a number of years, in last year or so I have added foot tambourine, then cajon bass drum (first I has a suitcase with a pedal attached!).
I gig at the moment as a one-man band with Eric Ng on Double-bass and backing vocals. Due to my suitcase-beating past I called my band Parker & The Suitcase.
I started to take this music thing seriously as a profession in November 2011. Went solo and thought: I will busk full time and take any gig I can. I was playing in all sorts of remote places in my native Herefordshire for next to no money   , often to tiny audiences, just to get experience. I thought I needed to go off on a 'pilgrimage' of sorts, so I thought I'd go to the southern states of the USA. I needed to experience this Americana thing first hand! 
My first EP, all tracks uploaded below, was a product of a year of playing around in mainly Herefordshire, recorded in, all extra players from and album art made in Herefordshire. 
Parker & The Suitcase are trying to get around North-west England and all the rest of the UK at the moment. We are trying to get an album recorded this year and to play internationally!

Toby Parker.

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