ABC Dig Music

Yep, Parker was and still is one the best of British rockers. Legend. And yes, 'Can't be too strong' is absolutely chilling.

Forget Joe Jackson. Yes, even forget Elvis Costello since he's writing operas now (great as he is) - Graham Parker is the original English, nasal, hard-rocking working class git from the mid to late 70's. His debut 'Howlin' Wind' preceded the UK punk movement, and it's insure if Parker was ever part of such, or a rocker who got grabbed by Stiff, Vertigo and Arista because he didn't sound like Yes. Sometimes credited, sometimes not, The Rumour (i.e.Brinsley Scharz) 'stuck by him' through his first 6 or 7 LPs. Even after that members of The Rumour kept playing on GP albums along with Nick Lowe and Steve Nieve (from The The Attractions).

My fave quote re GP, who was previously a gas pump attendant is 'A crabby pug whose bark is every bit as ferocious as his talent, Graham Parker comes on like an arrogant bantam with the world's bone up his buttwere' (TrouserPress)

Like most music (IMHO), Parker went off the boil in the mid 80's (though I admit to liking 'The Real Macaw'), but he clawed his way back with progressively better and better albums, and is now almost back to his original heights. And there's not too many people you can say that about after 35 years.

If you want to try just one Graham Parkler/Rumour album, start with their fourth, 'Squeezing out Sparks'. It's an incendiary post-punk classic, and most uniquely, it's not anti-establishment. Parker sounds like a grass-roots pissed-off conservative, and one of the highlights of his career is the brutal acoustic anti-abortion ballad 'Can't be too Strong'