00:00:00 - 00:00:07 Dean Parks

The first thing I did, the pretzel logic.

00:00:07 - 00:00:23 Dean Parks

Really? Don't lose that number. They were already famous. They'd done reelin in the years to do it again. Big hits. And we were all fans of them. And so it was kind of a pleasure to walk in knowing that the songs are going to be great.

00:00:23 - 00:00:39 Ric Stewart

Session guitarist Dean parks talks and plays Steely Dan, Eric Clapton and a unique, original and soul country number 11. I'm Ric Stewart, a film making deejay since the mid-eighties, adding some real life podcasts to get deeper into soul country. Good God.

00:00:40 - 00:01:05 Ric Stewart

Where we corral Americana with a groove curated for classic rock and soul thing. Listen to this beat. Revitalize our cultural roots in Westerns, blues and variety. Now, a word from our sponsors. Contact Ace Production for digital marketing, content strategy and production for your social media to drive. Use sales and engagement. If you need original and effective content, contact Ace.

00:01:05 - 00:01:26 Ric Stewart

Well, Dean grabbed the nearest guitar and pulled off some FM standard licks. And here's how it all went down.

00:01:26 - 00:01:36 Dean Parks

To.

00:01:36 - 00:01:41 Dean Parks

And.

00:01:41 - 00:02:11 Dean Parks

When can 1970. When I moved to LA. It was a booming situation. Most, TV shows were recording directly to two tracks or four. You needed a group of musicians in the room. They needed to be able to read in order to get the thing done quickly, you know, on time, they needed to be dependable, show up on time.

00:02:11 - 00:02:37 Dean Parks

Was a real work ethic work town. And, there's a lot of creativity that went on because most of the arrangers didn't know exactly what rock and roll was all about, because they came from jazz and classical. And so they would put a lot of, you know, just maybe a couple of verbal instructions on the thing about what field they were going for, and it was up to the player to make it real.

00:02:37 - 00:03:02 Dean Parks

Yeah. But there was, you know, Motown moved to LA. So you got that, that bumped up the, enjoyment factor for me tremendously. But to Glen Campbell, that also brought country to L.A. he had been a session player, and then he became a big artist and, had hits, of, you know, soft country hits.

00:03:02 - 00:03:07 Dean Parks

And, so, you know, the variety, which I like, variety was great.

00:03:07 - 00:03:11 Ric Stewart

What were some of the like the earlier gigs that you recall from that?

00:03:11 - 00:03:46 Dean Parks

Yeah. Oh, well, well, the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and then which was, we did a pre-record for three hours, with four big band, and, that was, and the show was basically wall to wall music with little comedy skits in between. So it's all styles, and, fast moving, and they do real vocals to our tracks, and we might get 2 or 3 takes on a piece that's, you know, a real music focused piece.

00:03:46 - 00:04:14 Dean Parks

And so we could get a good take on it. So it was as good as a record, but moving quick at the same time. So there was that kind of thing and kind of big production things. Rita Coolidge was, recording records. So it was just a rhythm section and her singing and doing whatever songs she and her producer, David Anjali, would find, Johnny Rivers, I met him, that's the thing about L.A. is that all those players are coming from all over the country.

00:04:14 - 00:04:27 Dean Parks

So it's sort of curates, you know, the cream of the crop. Whoever think that they want to really be serious with their career, they come out and, so very few natives in the, in the, in the band.

00:04:27 - 00:04:30 Ric Stewart

Coming into Fort Worth, were you, close to T-Bone Burnett and.

00:04:31 - 00:04:44 Dean Parks

Yeah, we went to high school together. He used to he used to sing in a couple of songs with our band. If we were playing a, I think, a local dance or something like that. And, he produced a couple of things on a group. I was in there.

00:04:44 - 00:04:47 Ric Stewart

Or any other recording studio guy even. Yeah. Early on.

00:04:47 - 00:05:15 Dean Parks

Yeah. Yeah, he was, into it. There was a studio built below the Hi-Fi store, Clifford Herring Sound. There was a, studio called Sound City and had a four track recorder and a three track recorder. And so we would record on four tracks, mix those down to 1 or 2 tracks of the three track, and then move it back over to the four track machine and keep doing, you know, I guess it's basically the same thing that all the, the 60s groups were doing.

00:05:15 - 00:05:36 Dean Parks

That's that's the way you made records. Then you, you, you you make your decisions as you go. And you there's no change in those, rocket pneumonia.

00:05:36 - 00:05:43 Unknown

And then the if you do and.

00:05:43 - 00:06:13 Dean Parks

Then there's a beta. I came from North Texas and I, played woodwinds, and I was good at reading music and playing rock, which is a great, kind of a rarity, because usually it's one or the other. And, and so anyway, from the first minute, reading a chord chart with no notes about what we should be playing, coming up with a part, I would come up with the part, he would come up with the complimentary part, or vice versa.

00:06:13 - 00:06:40 Dean Parks

Whoever, whoever got the good idea first would lean on his thing. We both able to play what we hear right away, and we stayed out of each other's way and made it like we had been rehearsing it for weeks, in fact. And we were just reading through it. And that's important. Being able to listen while you play and for playing what you hear, that's half of it.

00:06:40 - 00:06:56 Dean Parks

And the other half is learn to hear good things and, you know, sing a solo, then play that solo. Oh.

00:06:56 - 00:07:06 Dean Parks

Jose, Steely Dan had me do a solo on, someone called Haitian Divorce, and it was used to talk box. Yeah.

00:07:07 - 00:07:10 Dean Parks

It was a reggae thing.

00:07:10 - 00:07:36 Dean Parks

I've wandered into the studio to say hello to those guys. They were recording at a different studio. Larry Carlton was in the band here, and, Bernard Purdie, Chuck and Amati and and and, Larry said, you want to play on the next one of them? So I played that, rhythm part on his guitar and then,

00:07:36 - 00:07:48 Dean Parks

They gave me the option. Walter said, I can I can do it after you. You can just play and and I'll do the talkbacks part, or you can do both at the same time. I said, no, you you do the talk box.

00:07:48 - 00:07:51 Ric Stewart

And they didn't really believe in genres. Right. It was just kind of playing across.

00:07:51 - 00:07:56 Dean Parks

Yeah. That's right. Like do with your dirty work, you know. Sounds like a country tune.

00:07:56 - 00:08:12 Ric Stewart

Sort of. I did hear or read one of these interviews. Me was Walter talking about your time at Bard College, and Fagan had like five bands, every different kind of band. Oh, Knights of the week, I think Walter two and four of them. There was a country band there. I didn't know that. Well, a quarter and, with a gun free, pretty westernized, country and westerns.

00:08:12 - 00:08:37 Dean Parks

I know there was sort of a country quality to what they were doing. Scott Baxter was a great pedal steel player as well, and he played on a couple in New York.

00:08:37 - 00:08:45 Dean Parks

And.

00:08:45 - 00:09:10 Dean Parks

I think you don't use that number. Organized in the band was Michael Michael Martin, who was a session keyboard player. And, he did the rhythm charts on that early stuff and called the band me and Jim Gordon. Chuck Rainey, I believe, was probably Walter's call because he was Walter's bass player. And and Chuck Rainey is a great bass player, and he loved what he did.

00:09:10 - 00:09:22 Dean Parks

And I think that he wanted to have Chuck there being doing the bass part. Oh.

00:09:22 - 00:09:36 Ric Stewart

So let's talk, about joining a band. So you played on some stage work with, Crosby and Nash at one point and. Yeah. Did you have to whatever become the the type of musical persona of stills to fill that? Well, yeah.

00:09:36 - 00:09:57 Dean Parks

So there's stills and, and Neil Young, right. So, I kind of learned, trick from listening to John Harrington play with Steely Dan when they started going live, after all those years. So John would play the essence of the solo to begin, and then he would go off on his own thing. I thought that was a real good way to go.

00:09:57 - 00:10:08 Dean Parks

So I sort of did that with Crosby and Nash, and there was, you know, there was acoustic work to do on that stuff and lead stuff and just rock rhythm. But, what do.

00:10:08 - 00:10:11 Ric Stewart

You think about that? Like Sweet Judy Blue Eyes kind of guitar style?

00:10:11 - 00:10:36 Dean Parks

And that was fantastic. Yeah. Graham told me a story about that. That, that's the first thing they did on the on the that album, at Wally Heider Studio. And I went in to listen to the playback and the engineer said, oh, I, I'm so sorry. We we had a vocal session in here and I had a lot of compression on, and there was a lot of compression on your guitar.

00:10:36 - 00:10:57 Dean Parks

We're just going to have to redo them. Steven said, no, we're not. We're going to keep that for the whole album. So it's highly compressed. Guitars make it as vital as an electric because that's what you get from electric overdrive and sort of is the attraction for a guitar player to overdrive is that it takes the loud things and took some in and takes the low things and brings them up.

00:10:57 - 00:11:24 Dean Parks

So you're playing in, a real lively range. You could do pull offs and hammer ons or hit it hard and they're all in the ballpark where if you're taking a guitar direct, it's very peaky and that you're not naturally good sounding. So you put a lot of compression on an acoustic guitar, and you can get this and start playing it like an electric horse.

00:11:24 - 00:11:54 Dean Parks

So keeping that in mind, you hear some of those acoustic parts that he plays and, yeah, I'm assuming I haven't talked with him about that, but I'm assuming that that was inspirational to have that compression going because you have, you know, you can you can hear, you can do it, you know, like that. And it comes off like an electric, you know, it's like, it's this vital, vital electrified sound.

00:11:54 - 00:12:09 Dean Parks

Yeah. He told me, Crosby told me that he tuned to always.

00:12:09 - 00:12:11 Dean Parks

So that's the basis to that thing.

00:12:11 - 00:12:14 Ric Stewart

Just seems like a blues guy kind of thing, too.

00:12:14 - 00:12:15 Dean Parks

Yeah, exactly.

00:12:15 - 00:12:16 Ric Stewart

Yeah, he had a real feel for that.

00:12:16 - 00:12:17 Dean Parks

Fantastic.

00:12:17 - 00:12:22 Ric Stewart

You're the lead guitarist joining the new band. Is that, like, in a tricky kind of mental situation to get it?

00:12:22 - 00:12:24 Dean Parks

Do you mean playing with them?

00:12:24 - 00:12:30 Ric Stewart

Yeah, I'd say anybody when you have to, like, pick up a catalog of songs and be like a front kind of player.

00:12:30 - 00:12:59 Dean Parks

It's fun. Walter Becker told me a little thing when they first started playing live again, he would turn his guitar amp down, which make the front of house. Guy turned his guitar up in the mix, and then he could hear his guitar over and throughout the whole venue. So that became something that I uses, and I became very comfortable in playing for a lot of people because it sounded so nice.

00:12:59 - 00:13:07 Dean Parks

And, you know, the audience, let's face it, they they want you to be good. They're not your enemies. They're your friends. They're rooting for you.

00:13:07 - 00:13:12 Ric Stewart

Being a part of this. The Sonny and Cher enterprise was easy to fit in to that.

00:13:12 - 00:13:40 Dean Parks

Well, yeah, it was, it was pretty loose, really. I mean, they, we I had done a filling job for them when they came through Fort Worth or Dallas, and, so they called me when they started doing this new road show with, you know, she started it there was basically for, the Fairmont Hotel tours and Vegas, sunny wanted them to end up in Vegas.

00:13:40 - 00:13:59 Dean Parks

So it was a completely different kind of act than they had done before. And so he'd been able to put together a band together. They remember they called me and I, I thought I wanted to go on the road with them. And I was at the point then where I was ready to move to L.A. and, and I knew it, and I had my money saved up to do that.

00:13:59 - 00:14:20 Dean Parks

And, I thought this would be a good springboard. I said, well, yeah, my band did that. I was in, the T-Bone was producing some records with on, on, wanted to come also. So I talked them into giving my band a try, which worked out great. We went to Chicago and read the gig.

00:14:20 - 00:14:37 Dean Parks

On the gig? Maybe we rehearsed in the afternoon or something, but we were all reading musicians from North Texas and, university. And so we nailed it pretty much, and.

00:14:37 - 00:14:42 Ric Stewart

Struck the school later graduated. Norah Jones, right, did the same. Oh, I don't know. So yeah, I think she's from that.

00:14:42 - 00:14:44 Dean Parks

Yeah. That was a lot of,

00:14:44 - 00:14:50 Ric Stewart

Or it's another Texas guy, Lyle Lovett. You're associated with him continuously. Seems like. Tell me more about that. That.

00:14:50 - 00:15:04 Dean Parks

Yeah. Well, so I met Lyle when, there was an album that was, Grateful Dead tribute. Every artist, multiple artist. Each guy did one song. And while they had,

00:15:04 - 00:15:34 Dean Parks

A Grateful Dead tune and, the producer was George Mason Berg, and he knew us, meaning, Russ Kunkel. Lee Sklar, me, and then Lyle brought his piano player, Matt Rawlings. And, we did that record. And from then on, a Lyle use that rhythm section as, his core recording rhythm section would come out to LA and then bring it was half Nashville and half of by.

00:15:34 - 00:15:54 Dean Parks

And so through that, I got to meet Paul Franklin on pedal steel and Sam Bush and, Stuart Duncan, and, Jerry Douglas, and, yeah, I was a total thrill because those guys were such a players. And,

00:15:54 - 00:15:57 Ric Stewart

Yeah. How would you describe, like, Lyle's take on country music.

00:15:57 - 00:15:58 Dean Parks

Or.

00:15:58 - 00:16:00 Ric Stewart

Where is he coming at it from?

00:16:00 - 00:16:30 Dean Parks

Well, he he's a songwriter and he's a big fan of songwriters, you know, and, I think what he did coming up was basically coffeehouse gigs, playing solo acoustic and singing and, I, I don't know, I look at his, the kind of songs he does, some of them are sort of, that swing that country swing thing.

00:16:30 - 00:16:54 Dean Parks

She's no lady. She's my wife. Then there's that spacious thing you imagine, you know, a home in the middle of, you know, dirt land, farm area, lots of space, lots of time to think, but just simple thoughts, but soulful thoughts. So that whole southwest, atmospheric thing. All right.

00:16:54 - 00:16:57 Ric Stewart

So what about, Oh, you had the L.A reggae album with Johnny Rivers. I had that right.

00:16:57 - 00:16:58 Dean Parks

Yeah, that was fun.

00:16:58 - 00:16:59 Ric Stewart

What's he like to work with? He's always, you know, again.

00:16:59 - 00:17:20 Dean Parks

Oh, he's great. So, you know, usually on a tracking session, you go in and you do okay. Tracking. We got the rhythm section here. And we're paying all these guys and an engineer and we got a studio. So we're going to do as many tracks as we can. And then we'll do the vocals and the solo overdubs. And then we'll do that later, later in the week or maybe next week.

00:17:20 - 00:17:26 Dean Parks

Okay. Which is okay, you know, but but it.

00:17:26 - 00:17:48 Dean Parks

Johnny didn't do it that way. We started a song on a day and we did all the overdubs. He did his final vocals, usually. Sometimes the tracking vocal was the final vocal, and then he would double the choruses or wherever he wanted to. Do we do any overdubs? We wanted to do and they'd mix it that night and it was, there you go, that's it.

00:17:48 - 00:17:51 Ric Stewart

It was from an older era, almost. Yeah, we we started real young.

00:17:51 - 00:18:03 Dean Parks

Yeah. He did I, he was already, you know, I knew him from his records for sure when I first came out. So this was, you know.

00:18:03 - 00:18:09 Ric Stewart

I saw him play Jazz Fest about 3 or 4 years ago wearing an LSU ball cap, and it was like it took it a lot younger than he really is.

00:18:10 - 00:18:21 Dean Parks

Yeah, he's still doing great. I worked with him recently, and, he's still sounds great and he's still Johnny Rivers all the way or.

00:18:21 - 00:18:26 Ric Stewart

Another album I saw you run was the Let's Get It On album, Marvin Gaye. Oh yeah, that what I do?

00:18:26 - 00:18:50 Dean Parks

Yeah. I remember having lunch with Marvin and a little courtyard in the Motown house at the Motown studio and, in la mo West call. I had a, I had a peanut butter sandwich from home, and he said, oh, yeah, I used to. That's the kind of thing when you're a kid, you say, when I grow up, I'm going to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich any time I want to.

00:18:50 - 00:19:09 Dean Parks

So it was very easy, very friendly. So on the Let's Get It on song, though that day I couldn't make the session. I had another preexisting session and Don pink was on it, and he he got to play that nice intro thing. I think it is it, it's his intro. He said play some at the beginning, play some bluesy thing.

00:19:09 - 00:19:15 Dean Parks

And so that whole thing is wouldn't have been there if I'd have been there have been at some different thing.

00:19:15 - 00:19:21 Ric Stewart

When you have to come up with something that's like the intro line of a song, do you just like, listen to the rest of the song? You kind of it just comes out.

00:19:21 - 00:19:51 Dean Parks

Yeah, yeah. Usually you, you get an idea. I can, I can write down what I think of because I, from my reading days, I learn to read music by writing music. Some friends in the band that I, joined the big band in high school. They, you know, for some reason, reading musicians, like, in bands and orchestras, they don't play by ear.

00:19:51 - 00:20:17 Dean Parks

It never occurred to them. They've always played by notes. And so I came in, I could play by ear. So they asked me to do, you know, do a take down a take five for me or whatever their song that they wanted. And so I kind of poked my way through and it was a great way to learn to read because you're learning what the you know, what the music is and you're trying to represent it in, notation.

00:20:17 - 00:20:26 Dean Parks

And then when you're seeing notation, it's you're kind of one layer deeper into making it a natural process to read it.

00:20:26 - 00:20:30 Ric Stewart

So Rhinestone Cowboy the first time around with, Glen Campbell, are you. Well, in that one.

00:20:30 - 00:20:54 Dean Parks

Yeah. Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter were producers. I worked for, and, they produced the album, and, I was part of their core musicians. Michael Martin was usually their piano player, which was the guy that got me into Steely Dan Sessions.

00:20:55 - 00:21:05 Dean Parks

So, yeah, that's, just a normal session. Glenn was there, and, was Jim down on some of the overdubs and stuff like that?

00:21:05 - 00:21:07 Ric Stewart

Does he play a lot of guitar on his own records? And I didn't.

00:21:07 - 00:21:19 Dean Parks

Play any while I was there. I did, you know, for that song, the bass guitar, the six string bass thing, down.

00:21:19 - 00:21:21 Ric Stewart

And and, but isn't that a.

00:21:21 - 00:21:35 Dean Parks

High string acoustics and regular acoustics and, maybe there wasn't really a tracking electric on that. It was maybe all acoustics. I haven't heard it lately, but that's kind of my recollection.

00:21:35 - 00:21:39 Ric Stewart

You know, it was a very memorable single in the day. I was doing Here's a little thing that came out, but they played it a.

00:21:39 - 00:21:42 Dean Parks

Lot, I know, and he played it for the rest of his, career as well.

00:21:42 - 00:21:47 Ric Stewart

So yeah, another song he did was, Wichita Lineman and yeah, he's no, he's known for bringing in the guitar part.

00:21:47 - 00:22:20 Dean Parks

That's before I came to LA, and I was a big fan of those Jimmy Webb records. I did some arrangements, in Dallas for a local artists, where we would stack string section parts from, string quartet and, and I was sort of emulating, you know, Jimmy Webb made it possible for all that orchestration to be cool, you know, but but with very open voicings, you know, not syrupy, but cool.

00:22:20 - 00:22:36 Ric Stewart

And, yeah, he gave it like a one person demo show, but, we finally did, Wichita Lineman, he brought out a guitar guy just to nail the Glen Campbell part. Yeah, but here's a little Morse code thing on the piano. Was just, you know. Yeah. Everything kills when he does it. It's like he's minimal, you know? It's like.

00:22:36 - 00:22:45 Ric Stewart

All right, let's talk about playing shows for a second. What takes a good show and makes it great.

00:22:45 - 00:23:03 Dean Parks

I it takes the professional musicians is what it takes a musician that can bring his best in the time of pressure is sort of like athletics in that way. You know the, the, the guys that can, excel under pressure and don't fall under pressure.

00:23:03 - 00:23:06 Ric Stewart

That's so in the group setting. That's everybody.

00:23:06 - 00:23:30 Dean Parks

Yeah, man, that kind of has to be everybody. You know, it's, sometimes it's rehearsal. I, you know, the different groups handle it different ways. So I never memorized my solos, but there are players that do great players that kind of construct a solo or appeared on the record in a certain way, becomes a part of the song in a way, and they have to play it like the record.

00:23:30 - 00:23:37 Dean Parks

But when I was with Crosby and Nash, sort of the further out I would take at the bigger degree in their face.

00:23:37 - 00:23:38 Ric Stewart

As well.

00:23:38 - 00:23:44 Dean Parks

Because they're in rock and roll, you know, that's what that was. Come and bring it. You know, if you ever hear the it.

00:23:44 - 00:23:47 Ric Stewart

Was jazz related. I mean, like there was a desire to close. Yeah.

00:23:47 - 00:24:16 Dean Parks

And that's right. And, there's a jazz sensibility. Crosby was a fan of, of Coltrane and all the, you know, you can kind of tell that eight Miles high because we go and takes that solo, which is basically like a Coltrane emulation for guitar. And, so they were, you know, they were open to that. And, and they kind of brought a fresh, spacious adventure to harmony in rock.

00:24:17 - 00:24:21 Dean Parks

I thought that, wasn't there before they came along.

00:24:21 - 00:24:25 Ric Stewart

Okay, let's change up the topic here a little bit. Favorite Western movies of all time?

00:24:25 - 00:24:38 Dean Parks

Western movies. I liked, Unforgiven because it was so, such a different take on the whole, cowboy hero.

00:24:38 - 00:24:38 Ric Stewart

Anti-hero.

00:24:38 - 00:24:48 Dean Parks

Anti-Hero. Yeah. Gunsmoke. I used to watch. I would also see reruns of Gene Autry and, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans.

00:24:48 - 00:24:58 Ric Stewart

Eastwood was kind of somewhere near on the money when he was like, there's only two original American art forms jazz in the Western. I probably just would say blues in the Western, but I'm you, you know, you get the same point, you know?

00:24:58 - 00:25:25 Dean Parks

Yeah, the same point that and there's kind of, American inventions. Yeah. My mom used to take me to see country western shows coming through Fort Worth, because the circuit was Fort Worth on a Friday night, the Cowtown Jamboree. And, Dallas, the big jamboree on Saturday nights. All the big country stars, little Jimmy Dickinson, you know, Webb Pierce.

00:25:25 - 00:25:39 Dean Parks

And, you know, whoever was making records would be on that tour, you know, several artists. And that's what got me wanting to do music when I was five.

00:25:39 - 00:25:47 Dean Parks

So, yeah, country has been the country was part of, Chuck Berry's thing. It was he was kind of a country singer.

00:25:47 - 00:25:57 Ric Stewart

Yeah, well, he was coming after Louis Jordan. Ain't nobody here but chickens. And, Yeah. And it was. It was. Jimmy Reed was doing the same thing. You know, it's got Lana Cook country style vocal on top of a. Yeah Army thing.

00:25:57 - 00:26:06 Dean Parks

Yeah. His beach, you know, doing chicken, injecting ticketing, ticketing. Goddamn. You know, that was a Western thing. Straight, yeah. Straight country beats.

00:26:06 - 00:26:10 Ric Stewart

All right. Fun anecdotes about tours or parties. That'll never happen again.

00:26:10 - 00:26:14 Dean Parks

No.

00:26:14 - 00:26:16 Ric Stewart

That memories been worked with.

00:26:16 - 00:26:25 Dean Parks

Well, I don't know. I was, people ask me why I didn't get hooked on drugs, like a lot of musicians do. And I said, well, I just didn't have the self-confidence.

00:26:25 - 00:26:30 Dean Parks

I figured I need my wits about me to keep up with these guys. Musicianship is so terrific.

00:26:30 - 00:26:39 Ric Stewart

Yeah, there's a lot of self self-destruction kind of things. Projects you're working on now and looking forward to working on anything coming up.

00:26:39 - 00:27:09 Dean Parks

Oh, I don't know. I, I do this thing. GLR, arranges music for the Grammy premiere, program, which is a 3.5 hour show that's only streamed. It's not broadcast, but it's really where most of the Grammys are given out. You know, for jazz, country, Americana, world music and classical music, those are all take they have like 60 or 70 awards.

00:27:09 - 00:27:48 Dean Parks

And the house band is, you know, for four horns for, strings and two guitars. You a rhythm section. We play about 70 play on some play offs that are every kind of hit record music that there was, you know, from metal to country to, classical to, you know, it's just fun to go through. Hit each one of those, dial up your sound, you know, that's that's well rehearsed, but you're never really ready, even though you're just not that well rehearsed with so much going on.

00:27:48 - 00:28:17 Dean Parks

And there's usually there about, I think we have, there's a 2 or 4 production numbers that are for, you know, one year it was, Angelique Kidjo. So we it's an African thing, you know, and then it could be, the jazzy thing or, you know, again, variety.

00:28:17 - 00:28:24 Dean Parks

I mean.

00:28:24 - 00:28:27 Dean Parks

Change the world, Eric Clapton.

00:28:27 - 00:28:35 Ric Stewart

So, yeah. Has it work out when you get a guitar player is like really well known like that. And you also got to be like the guitar player they hire. Like, what are they thinking? What are you using?

00:28:35 - 00:29:02 Dean Parks

I don't know, because they're Babyface was the producer and he's a guitar player too. And he could play that part really well. Clapton wasn't there. It was a Nashville writing team. And I'm sorry, I don't know the names, but the demo was basically that too. So, you know, so the babyface was just building a track from where he had a rhythm machine.

00:29:02 - 00:29:05 Ric Stewart

And we underestimated Clapton's power as a vocalist, too.

00:29:05 - 00:29:11 Dean Parks

Yeah, I think he's a fantastic vocalist, great style, even in the cream I've ever loved.

00:29:11 - 00:29:16 Ric Stewart

He was too young to do the all the lead vocals in the beginning, I guess, but then they'd get like, well.

00:29:16 - 00:29:17 Dean Parks

Yeah, Jack Bruce.

00:29:17 - 00:29:22 Ric Stewart

Had an extrovert in there. What about when cream reunited? You see that footage, you know, like, oh, five minutes?

00:29:22 - 00:29:27 Dean Parks

Yeah, I'm sure I did. I thought, I think I thought about going over to see that.

00:29:27 - 00:29:30 Ric Stewart

Do you ever play in the power trio rock format?

00:29:30 - 00:30:05 Dean Parks

Well, in school, where you hit me, I can. I had a cream jam group and there was three guys, and it was really fun to do. That's a great format because you can take it anywhere you want to. There's only two guys in charge of the harmony pretty easy, I think. I heard cream first, then that was sort of the first time that, I look at those guys as real musicians, you know, like on the same level as a jazz musician, like, totally accomplished in, easy for them, you know?

00:30:05 - 00:30:29 Dean Parks

Sounds easy for them. I love the Jeff Beck albums. You know, the leap. Rod Stewart was a singer. Yeah, that was great. Yeah. I got to hear them, at the Hollywood Bowl. They did a concert with Rod Stewart, and, Jeff Beck came and did ten, six songs with them live. That was very enjoyable to see that, you know.

00:30:30 - 00:30:35 Ric Stewart

You what about Beck as you evolved there in the, in the 70s? I like the blow by blow album and.

00:30:35 - 00:31:00 Dean Parks

Well, so my favorite Jeff Beck was that first off. And I guess that was all, Gibson's, you know, Les Paul oriented, but I'm not sure because he played, tele back then. Some too. But when he started playing the Strat with his fingers, I think that was, like, you had it coming, which was kind of,

00:31:00 - 00:31:25 Dean Parks

ProTools environment. You know, his producer. I love what he did with that. He kind of made the most of Jeff's, virtuoso thing. It took the best of it and made it pieced together to make it pretty exciting pieces to me. So I got I became a Jeff Beck fan on that record, you know, for the For the Currents was.

00:31:25 - 00:31:32 Ric Stewart

Always using the tremolo a lot. Right. And it was kind of a fascinating concept there. You could control his clock level.

00:31:32 - 00:31:53 Dean Parks

Yeah. No, he really had a complete, control. And he knew exactly what he was doing, where it was musically. For a guy that makes music out of simple parts. He put some is it was very elegant what he did with the electric guitar. I saw him live several times.

00:31:53 - 00:32:13 Ric Stewart

There's this footage of him and, Jimmy Page and Clapton. They're all meeting the Queen like, you know, 15 years ago. And, And I think it's like, Jimmy Page says we were all in the same band. And, and then she's like, so you've done all right for yourselves then, and, Jeff Beck's like they did a little better than I did.

00:32:13 - 00:32:16 Dean Parks

Yeah. And, Jeff.

00:32:16 - 00:32:22 Ric Stewart

He wasn't that tied to the money side of the business, but didn't really want to do whatever somebody else wanted him to do.

00:32:22 - 00:32:24 Dean Parks

Yeah. That's right.

00:32:24 - 00:32:25 Ric Stewart

That's I love that.

00:32:25 - 00:32:32 Dean Parks

It's kind of the rock and roll spirit in a way. You know, just playing my music the way I play it and take it or leave it.

00:32:32 - 00:32:36 Ric Stewart

Okay. Any collaborations on your wish list? Upcoming?

00:32:36 - 00:33:06 Dean Parks

There's a group I play with in a trio format. James Cruce and Andrew Higgins. We live in, Andrew Lives is another town. He lives in San Francisco. We live in L.A., but we've gotten together a few times, and, there's a great chemistry for the, the trio format, because, Andrew's very musical and can follow and have ideas that spark other ideas.

00:33:06 - 00:33:40 Dean Parks

James Cruz, in a similar way, has is just a very elegant drummer. And, we've done some playing live that and a little bit of recording, Dave Way studio and, I, I'm really, haven't put anything together but would like to do something, with those guys. Soon, within the next year.

00:33:40 - 00:33:43 Unknown

And.

00:33:43 - 00:34:10 Unknown

I'm, I'm.

00:34:10 - 00:34:18 Dean Parks

Just, you know.

00:34:18 - 00:34:28 Dean Parks

You.

00:34:28 - 00:34:33 Unknown

And I, we are.

00:34:33 - 00:35:14 Unknown

We.

00:35:14 - 00:35:19 Ric Stewart

All right, Jim Parks, thanks for coming by. So country.

00:35:19 - 00:35:55 Ric Stewart

Soul country number 11 is in the books with special appreciation to Greg Lucas and to read message for our theme song. We are 11 was brought to you by Ace Production in conjunction with the Blues Center and with support from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. Tune in again for more roots music, culture and lore as season three ropes in expensive, Ivan Neville, the cosmic Appalachian sounds of Olivia Wolf and Country Hall of Famer Charlie McCoy, and find trailers, highlights and playlists, as well as a full archive of episodes at Soulcountry.com.

00:35:56 - 00:35:57 Ric Stewart

Where we.

Dean Parks

Soul Country #11

Airdate Aug 3, 2025

Podcast 36:01

Recorded in New Orleans, LA

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Description

If you’ve heard Steely Dan – you’ve heard the guitar artistry of Dean Parks. His licks grace “Peg,” “Josie,” “Haitian Divorce” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” In this exclusive episode, Dean shares stories from his collaborations with music giants like Eric Clapton, Crosby & Nash, Lyle Lovett and Johnny Rivers. Discover how he became a key player on The Sonny and Cher Show and hear his advice for aspiring guitarists. We wrap up with a stunning improvised original performance, showcasing Parks’ tasty playing. Don’t miss this deep dive into the career of a guitar legend whose riffs helped define an era. Don’t miss the video trailer for highlights.Sponsored in part with grants from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation.

More about Dean Parks

Weldon Dean Parks, born December 6, 1946, in Fort Worth, Texas, is a distinguished session guitarist and record producer whose career spans decades of musical innovation. Early on, he played with the North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band, refining his jazz and fusion skills. In 1980, Parks co-founded Koinonia, a Christian Jazz Fusion band, highlighting his genre-spanning talent. His inventive guitar work shines on Steely Dan's "Haitian Divorce," and he relates it was Walter Becker who actually played the talkbox solo. Parks has collaborated with artists like Michael Jackson, Bread, David Foster, and Gordon Lightfoot, contributing to their iconic albums. His work extends to film and television, with credits on soundtracks for The Jungle Book, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bowfinger, and The Notebook. Parks showcased his multi-instrumental prowess on Viktor Krauss' 2007 album II, playing various stringed instruments. His enduring influence in music reflects a commitment to creativity and excellence, making him a revered figure in the industry.

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