My songs hit 5 Broadjam Top 10 Music Charts this week!

Top 10 Blues - #10 -  "Things Are Gonna Be Different"

Top 10 Country Blues - #3 - "Things Are Gonna Be Different"

Top 10 Country Blues - #4 - "Things Are Gonna Be Different" (Running Monkey Music)

Top 10 Country Blues - # 9 - "I'll Never Be Free"

Top 10 Blues Rock - #8 - "Walkin' Out On You"

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Last night at Rock City News annual Music Awards ceremony at Hacienda Corona in North Hollywood, I was awarded a trophy for "Lifetime Achievement for Blues" Award.

The new CD has hit the "Roots Blues Top 50" Charts for 8 weeks now.

Just got the word that my new 'Self Titled" CD took 1st Place in the Santa Clarita Valley Blues Society's "Best Self Produced CD" Competition. The CD now gets sent to the Blues Foundation for 3 levels of judging by Radio, Press and Record Producers. The Winner will be announced during the International Blues Challenge Finals on Saturday, February 7th, 2009.

"The Price of Fame" is 3 and "Walkin' Out on You" is 4 !! Thank You Broadjam Fans!!!

Last night at the very packed BB King's in Hollywood, John Parker was presented with the coveted "Outstanding Blues Band of the Year" trophy at the Rock City Music Awards show for his musical involvement and work with "John Parker & Forced Call".

"Music From The Heart - Parker Plays On"
Easy Reader News - Beach Edition
by Anna Mavromati
Published November 29, 2007

Water was still leaking out of the freshly-stapled flap of skin on John Parker's abdomen when he played a concert on the Redondo Beach Pier during the summer of 2005. His black pants were soaking wet and he could hear his soggy boots squishing as he walked off the stage.

Twenty-one days prior to the performance, Parker underwent a transplant surgery to replace his cancerous liver. His body was pumped with water to keep his veins flowing throughout the procedure. He was still recovering from the operation when he wrapped padding around his waist to absorb the liquid, packed up his equipment, and headed out to play guitar and sing at the two-hour show he had booked a few months prior.

A few months after receiving the liver transplant, Parker's cancer returned. For a little more than a year now, he has continued various chemotherapy treatments but he has also continued to write music and perform live shows. Cancer didn't keep him from his music then, and it certainly isn't going to now. "The music has kept me on top. It really has," Parker said. "It's kept me alive and it's kept me moving."

He can be seen performing at Sammy's Woodfire Pizza in Torrance the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. He also organizes the entertainment to raise funds for the American Cancer Society with his own Blues band and other Blues bands from the Santa Clarita Valley Blues Society. Groups from this Society, presided over by Parker as its president, do shows for fundraisers and rallies in Burbank, Santa Clarita, and the Beach Cities every year.

Parker and his band are also nominated for "Best Blues Band" at the Rock City Music Awards this year, which will be held Dec. 6 at Universal City Walk. Parker plans on releasing a new album by February. He said no matter what condition his health becomes, he'll try to complete the album by its deadline. "I know I can play guitar in a hospital bed. If I can play it behind my head, I can play in bed," Parker said with a laugh.

Parker's liver cancer was first detected about four years ago. He had fallen off a ladder at work—setting up lighting fixtures for films at Paramount Pictures—and cracked a few ribs. While getting a CAT scan to check that his lungs were in good shape, doctors noticed a tumor in his liver that was four inches in diameter—the size of a large orange.

"And we were looking at the lung," Parker said. "They say the Lord works in mysterious ways, and this was pretty mysterious." Parker needed a liver transplant. Although he had friends who were willing to become donors for him, doctors said that Parker needed an entire liver. Otherwise his strong blood flow would overwhelm a partial organ from a living donor.

A couple of weeks later, as Parker was loading a new refrigerator onto his boat in King Harbor, he got a phone call from the UCLA Medical Center. They had a liver, but it would expire if he didn't make it to the hospital within two hours. Parker left the refrigerator in storage and immediately went in. Three weeks later, he had a gig to perform. "I didn't cancel the thing. I just went and did it," Parker said. "And it didn't stop there. I just kept on doing it. Usually, like, three nights a week I had a show to do."

After receiving the replacement liver, Parker's liver cancer metastasized in his lungs a little more than a year ago. Earlier this month, a tumor caused by the cancer was discovered in Parker's heart. Doctors are not yet sure if they can operate on Parker due to his pre-existing condition, but he will be re-examined when he begins showing symptoms.

Parker said one of the best ways he's found to fight the cancer is to get as much information as possible, stay active and to "hit the music hard." "It's his medicine," said Barbara Ramsey-Duke of Lily in the Field Marketing and Promotions, who books shows for Parker and his band. "What he does with his music, I really believe it's why he's still here."

The 56-year-old was wearing his black Hard Rock Café sweater, sitting in the cabin of his boat as he talked about playing in a band called "Corny and the Corvettes" when he was 14, then getting wrapped up in the "hippie invasion" and psychedelic rock. He grew up in Santa Cruz, but he's toured through Arizona, Mexico and Texas playing music, and although he started out playing blues, it wasn't until he moved to Atlanta, Ga. that he returned to the genre.

His music has taken on a "whole new color" since the cancer diagnosis. He has a few songs inspired by his experience with cancer with titles like "Forget All Your Fears" and "I'll Never Give Up." He sang a few lines from his upcoming album: "Sitting here dreamin'/thinking about another time/when life was in color/and not so black and white." "If it wasn't for the music, you know, I'd probably lay there in bed like everyone else," Parker said. "I put on this happy face and get out there and talk and say you've got to fight. And my new album is filled with songs about the fight."

One thing Parker said he definitely does not want to do is let depression consume him. "So what do I do when I start feeling a little mushy like that? I just move on to something else before I start getting all gummy, because I don't think that gummy feeling's good for you," he said. "Being sick, making music, being famous, or any adventure you're going to go on, you've got to wrap your mind around it and take it all."

He said he lives by a quote he once heard: "He who speculates from the shore about the ocean shall know only its surface, but he who would know the depths of the ocean must be willing to plunge into it." The line comes from spiritual leader Meher Baba...."In essence what that tells me is, free your mind and your ass will follow," Parker said with a smirk. "You just got to go for it, wherever it's going to take you, you got to go all the way."

Parker wears dark sunglasses and a straw hat to cover his shaved head. After chemotherapy caused his hair to start falling out and made him look like a "mangy dog," Parker said he decided to shave it off and not grow it back. But he still keeps a full gray mustache.

John is a dock captain for the King Harbor Marina and one of the founders of the "Sea Scum Sailing Society," also known as "The High Society of Ocean Low Life." He lives with his wife, Lynn W. Parker, on their 56-foot sailboat in King Harbor and in their back-and-forth home in Santa Clarita. The couple met on the set for a Spike Lee film, "School Days".

"We feel like we've always together," Lynn said. "It's funny because, when I first met him it was like looking into the mirror, and he was me. Our life togethere has always been like that - our souls are very much a part of each other".

Lynn still works as a Set Decorator for films and television. Parker said that his family and friends have been extremely supportive, and have coped with his condition well – probably because he is doing so well mentally. "Having the support around you is everything, and sometimes it pulls on the heartstrings thinking about how wonderful people are," Parker said. "It gets real hard to keep yourself together."

As for how Parker himself is coping with his life, he said he doesn't want to waste too much of his time worrying about the cancer. "I'm not going to worry about it, and I don't worry about dying," he said. "I mean, sooner or later, you know, you got to go." "Fortunately I've got everything sort of taken care of," he said. "My retirement is in place and my wife's going to be taken care of, and I'm comfortable with that. But there's not much more I can do about it and there's no use in fretting over it. Just enjoy what time you've got left. "I figure like this, I'm just going to party on just as hard as I can, and when it gets to the point where it's starting to take me down, then I figure I've got at least another four or five months of kicking and screaming until I die. But I'm not going to sit on my butt until the kicking and screaming comes."

As Parker played one of his gigs at Sammy's Pizza, his redheaded wife traveled from table to table in the restaurant, mingling with all the friends who had come to see Parker play. "He's not like anybody else I know," said Lynn, sitting at a booth while John leaned back, closed his eyes and played a guitar solo. "I don't think anybody could have been through a lot of the stuff that he's been through with his health and still be up there playing. I have high hopes he will get the best of it - he's definitely a Survivor."

Good news...

I've recently signed a deal with CBS/Paramount for the songs on my "Off The Clock" album to appear on their television shows.

John Parker's "When I Reach My Destination" will appear on one of the episodes of the hit series "NCIS" on Tuesday, November 20th.

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