“They completely suppressed what I think is my best album ever,” he said. Graham Parker, a legendary English singer-songwriter, had to make the statement because major record labels declined to play his 1992 album Burning Questions. The dominant music channel at the time, MTV, declined to play his songs on their network.
Due to a shortage of funding, he turned to his wife, photographer Jolie Parker, for help. She may have saved his career or at the very least that record when he effectively requested her to serve as his impromptu cameraman.
When MTV refused to play, Graham Parker’s wife produced the song
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It’s around 1991 at this point. Parker recently finished recording his 12th studio album, Burning Questions and requested through Capitol Records that MTV air it on their network. Their plan was to produce a video on their own, which MTV would then air.
However, MTV declined. Their justification, according to a Los Angeles Times article from September 1992, was that their audience—all 63 million households—wouldn’t want to hear Parker’s songs. Parker became incensed by this.
He said of the procedure,
“I grew fairly upset at the concept that a record label suddenly had to take the music to the video outlet—not the video.
The intention of the record labels was to take the audio and ask the artist to create a video for them. He demands creative control over the songs he composed videos.
He added,
“I was really insulted.”
It seemed as if he had been told not to be creative, he stated in a July 2005 interview with Furious.
In a last-ditch effort, he called a few directors but received the same responses each time. As a result, in his fit of wrath, he had an idea. He wanted his wife to record some films for him.
I was so furious that I spent $1,400 on a camera and ordered my wife to be the cameraperson, Parker recalled. Learn how to make use of this, he said.
Jolie didn’t feel it was a big ask, though. Since the 1980s, she had been taking pictures of her husband’s record covers, mostly because he detested going to professional photo shoots.
So they ventured outside to capture a video in their New York garden for the album’s opening track, “Release Me.” For between $4,000 and $5,000, including editing, they completed the movie.
According to Parker, “It was a lot of fun.” He returned the video to Capitol. He made a remark, but the hand-over produced no results. For having the guts to accomplish something like that, he also rose to fame among many in the music industry and beyond.
Family Life of Graham Parker with Wife and Children
Before being made to serve as his impromptu videographer in 1991, Parker and his wife had been married for a very long time. They started dating before 1980, and he even made a song from his 1980 album The Up Escalator called “Jolie Jolie” about her.
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