” Before Elvis Costello, the Sex Pistols or the Clash there was Graham Parker and the Rumour, who anticipated the energy of punk and set the bar for smart, literate lyrics married to a danceable beat. Critics in the United States compared the band impact to Bruce Springsteen’s, but American record buyers didn’t follow suit, possibly because they couldn’t surrender Mr. Springsteen’s thrill of the open road for Mr. Parker’s desperation in an English cul-de-sac.
After five studio albums and hundreds of incendiary stage performances, the band and singer parted ways. The members of the Rumour gradually settled into lives as session musicians, guitar makers and, in one case, a librarian.
Mr. Parker, though, kept releasing new music and became in his words, a working musician, driving himself from his home in the Hudson Valley to gigs, often playing solo and sometimes with the Figgs, a popular local band. (He rarely, however, visits the local music hub, Woodstock, because “every time I go, I run into a musician who says: ‘We’re doing a benefit, Graham. For the sewers.’ â€)