With a fervent following and two critically acclaimed records of Americana to his credit, Parker Millsap considers it time for a change. The young Roots star adds a new, aggressive Pop edge to his music on the pivotal third release, Other Arrangements, revitalizing his budding career in bold shades of electric catharsis.
Coming from the small town of Purcell, Okla., the 24-year-old Millsap was raised in the Pentecostal church, which shaped everything early on for him, especially musically. At a young age, Gospel roots inspired him to play guitar both in church and out, eventually resulting in his formative, self-titled debut in 2014, a throwback, fiery blend of acoustic charisma and passionate vocals.
Millsap’s first single, the rowdy, semi-religious rave-up “Truck Stop Gospel,” sets the tone for much of the exuberance to follow on record and onstage. Tapping into ample reserves of presence, vitality and rawboned abandon, Millsap’s restless energy surges through all his songs. It was probably just a matter of time until he burst out on record with more rocking, accessible music, and Other Arrangements certainly qualifies. With blazing lead-off track “Fine Line,” Millsap immediately flashes his mettle with stuttering blasts of electric guitar punctuated by his powerful, supple tenor, testifying, “I been walkin’ the fine line between the thought and the action.” It’s a tougher, more Rock sound, and it’s easy to hear Millsap feeling liberated by breaking through the familiar Roots template of acoustic guitar and fiddle. Even the cover photo foreshadows the changes in store, as he stands alone against a stark white background with his cherry red electric guitar and amp.
“For me, Pop means more easily digestible music,” Millsap says. “When I think of Pop music, I think of it differently than a lot of people. I didn’t grow up listening to Pop radio, so to me Pop is Motown. What I mean by that is concise, simple songwriting that’s universal. My previous records have a lot of religious imagery, and 1) that turns a lot of people off, I found out, and 2) a lot of people can’t connect with it if you didn’t grow up with these symbols, (and that) prevents them from getting into the song. This just kind of informs my move to more direct songwriting.”
His last album, The Very Last Day, combined lively Gospel Blues with an apocalyptic fervor that literally hinted at the end of times in the title track. His lyrics and testimony recall The Louvin Brothers as Millsap sings about the “great atomic power” and a final reckoning all must face. The lyrical weight also includes character studies like “Heaven Sent,” a fearless portrayal of a gay son coming out to his preacher father, which underscores this record’s thematic gravity and Parker’s earnestness here.
But Millsap lightens up lyrically on the new record, and his craft makes it sound like he’s just letting it rip and savoring the spontaneity.
“That title, Other Arrangements, means everything you want it to mean,” he explains. “It just brought so many images to my mind. It’s actually the first song I wrote for this album, and as soon as I was writing the chorus, I knew this would be the title. I knew the title of the album before I had most of the songs for it.”
Musically, Other Arrangements pulses off and on with intensity, though it feels fuller with a whole band. Millsap’s band members — the classically-trained Daniel Foulks on violin, longtime collaborator Michael Rose on bass and Paddy Ryan on drums — have transformed into a buoyantly versatile combo.
“We were playing a lot of shows with a full band, and I just wanted to write for that, rather than just for me and my acoustic guitar and stand-up bass thing,” Millsap says. “So I went back to electric guitar, which is what I played in high school before we started gigging. It just made sense to write these Rock & Roll songs, which are fun to sing and play live. I grew tired of seeing arms crossed.”
With the Power Pop urgency of “Let a Little Light In” and the frenetic verve of “Some People,” Millsap embraces a fresh, raucous edge on the new album. In concert, if his set on PBS’s Austin City Limits program gauges anything, Millsap and Co. deliver something far from somber singer/songwriter recitals. Their singer/songwriter’s natural ebullience and Gospel flair fire up the audience.
“Musically, I don’t think I can ever escape my Gospel tonality, because that’s how I learned to play music: playing it at church,” Millsap says. “But it was Pentecostal Gospel music, which is not like Catholic dirges. I mean, there were drums, two or three electric guitars, bass, organ and choir, all doing it.”
Other Arrangements is not entirely guitar-dominated. Millsap’s collaboration with Sarah Jarosz, “Your Water,” sweeps in like a long-lost Van Morrison Soul chestnut, a kind of “Tupelo Honey” update for millennials. Co-written and performed with Jillette Johnson, “Come Back When You Can’t Stay” ends the album with delicate piano and finger-picked guitar, as Millsap and Johnson share whispered regrets and goodbyes.
In regard to where his music fits in the grand scheme of things, Millsap offers a compelling theory.
“For me, genre is mainly illusion,” he says. “I read this book called How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald, and it talks about how genre was basically invented to tell white people not to buy a certain kind of record and to tell black people to buy these records. But it’s just music, and I enjoy it all. Americana is great because it’s really a catch-all for any kind of Roots (music), which nowadays is anything with a guitar, so I don’t mind being lumped in with it. But I also don’t mind being lumped in with Pop music, Rock or whatever you got. “
Parker Millsap plays Thursday at Southgate House Revival with Travis Linville. Tickets/more show info: southgatehouse.com.
This article appears in May 23-30, 2018.