Mel Parsons (born 21 October 1981) is an

indie folk Indie folk (also called alternative folk) is an alternative genre of music that arose in the 1990s among musicians from indie rock scenes influenced by folk music. Characteristics The staff of '' Paste Magazine'' said in 2020: "No music genre ...

and

alternative country Alternative country (commonly abbreviated to alt-country; also known as alternative country rock, insurgent country, Americana, or y'allternative) is a loosely defined subgenre of country music and/or country rock that includes acts that diffe ...

singer/songwriter from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Early life and education

Parsons grew up on a sheep and beef farm in

Cape Foulwind Cape Foulwind is a headland on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, overlooking the Tasman Sea. It is located west of the town of Westport. There is a lighthouse located on a prominent site on the headland. A walkway beginning ...

, near Westport, on the West Coast of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. Parsons started out playing piano, and also picked up the guitar at about 14, finally getting serious in seventh form (about age 17) when applying for the

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

School of Music. After a year of music school, Parsons went overseas for a period, then returned to New Zealand to attend the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

, where she studied popular music and performance, along with history, anthropology and Spanish. Parsons has lived in various parts of the world. She spent a year close to the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...

in Chile, and two years in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

in Canada. Early influences on Parsons were

Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion st ...

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Sinéad O'Connor Shuhada' Sadaqat (born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor; , ; 8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023) was an Irish singer, songwriter, record producer and activist. Her debut studio album, ''The Lion and the Cobra'', was released in 1987 and achieve ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

Tom Petty Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the leader and frontman of the Rock music, rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s sup ...

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

and

Neil Diamond Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling musicians of all time. He has written and ...

. Later influences were

Tracy Chapman Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, widely known for her hit singles " Fast Car" (1988) and " Give Me One Reason" (1995). She was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she rel ...

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Damien Rice Damien George Rice (born 7 December 1973) is an Irish musician, singer and songwriter. He began his career as a member of the 1990s rock group Juniper (band), Juniper, who were signed to Polygram Records in 1997. The band enjoyed moderate succe ...

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, and

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Career

In 2007, Parsons returned to New Zealand to start work on her first album. The album was written by Parsons, and recorded with co-producer Shaun Elley and her backing band, The Rhythm Kings. The album ''Over My Shoulder'' was released in 2009. Parsons created her own label, Cape Road Recordings, releasing her album independently while using the New Zealand music firm Border Music for distribution. All of her albums have been released on her label. In 2011, Parsons released her second studio album, ''Red Grey Blue'', featuring

Anika Moa Anika Rose Moa (born 21 May 1980) is a New Zealand recording artist and television presenter. Her debut studio album ''Thinking Room'', was released in September 2001, which reached number one on the Official New Zealand Music Chart, New Z ...

and Greg Johnson on harmonies,

Bruce Lynch Bruce Lynch (born 1 June 1948, in New Zealand) is an electric and acoustic bassist, producer and arranger. Music career Arriving in the UK in the mid-1970s, Lynch became a commercially successful session musician, touring extensively with C ...

on double bass, and

Don McGlashan Don McGlashan (born 18 July 1959) is a New Zealand composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for membership in the bands Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, and The Mutton Birds, before going solo. He has also composed for cin ...

on baritone horn, along with others. The album was recorded in Studio One, Boatshed Studios, and The Spare Room, in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand. Parsons recorded her third studio album, ''Drylands'' at Surgery Studios. The album was engineered by Lee Prebble who, along with mixing engineer Oliver Harmer, won the

2015 New Zealand Music Awards The 2015 New Zealand Music Awards was the 50th holding of the annual ceremony featuring awards for musical recording artists based in or originating from New Zealand. It took place on 19 November 2015 at Vector Arena in Auckland and was hosted ...

for best engineer for the album. One of the songs Parsons wrote was a duet, and she decided to cold e-mail

to see if he would perform the other half of the song "Don't Wait", and he agreed. Another song on the album, "Get Out Alive", is the result of her writing about a dangerous car accident she was in where the car rolled four times and was totaled, but she walked out without serious injury, but found herself re-evaluating her life for a time. Parsons released her fourth album, '' Glass Heart'' on 30 November 2018. ''Glass Heart'' is the first album Parsons recorded outside of New Zealand. It was recorded in the US in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, with producer

Mitchell Froom Mitchell Froom (born June 29, 1953) is an American musician and record producer. He was a member of the bands Gamma and Latin Playboys, and is the keyboardist for Crowded House. He has produced albums for several artists, including David LaFl ...

. The logistics and finances made it impractical to bring her backing band over from New Zealand, so Froom recruited some local musicians to back Parsons on the album. The backing band for the album consists of bass player

Kaveh Rastegar Kaveh Rastegar is a Persian-American record producer, composer, and bass guitarist. He is best known for his work with John Legend, Sia, Bruno Mars, and Sting and Kneebody. He has two Grammy nominations. For over twenty years, Kaveh Rastegar ...

, guitarist Adam Levy, and drummer Ted Poor. Parsons performs rural woolshed tours across New Zealand with Amelia Dunbar and Emma Newborn (The Bitches Box). Although she sometimes tours by herself, and sometimes with her backing band, she has also joined a large New Zealand performance collective,

Fly My Pretties __NOTOC__ Fly My Pretties is a collaboration of musicians originally from Wellington, New Zealand who are known for coming together to record live albums, in various locations in New Zealand. The different musical backgrounds of the members make ...

. She also has toured Australia with

. Parsons was invited to perform at the

Folk Alliance International Folk Alliance International (previously the ''North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance'') is a non-profit organization that produces an annual conference that is the world's largest gathering of the folk music industry and community. Founde ...

in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Parsons released her fifth studio album, ''

Slow Burn Slow may refer to various basic dictionary-related meanings: * Slow velocity, the rate of change of position of a moving body ** Slow speed In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change ...

'', on 16 September 2022. It contains the singles "Carry On", "Already Gone", and the title track "Slow Burn". On 7 June 2024, she released her sixth studio album, ''

Sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...

''. It has reached no. 5 on the New Zealand music charts.

Personal life

Parsons currently lives in

Lyttelton, New Zealand Lyttelton ( or ''Riritana'') is a port town on the north shore of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō, at the northwestern end of Banks Peninsula and close to Christchurch, on the eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. As a landing point ...

. She tours so frequently that she is rarely home.

Recognition

Parsons was nominated for the following awards: *Best Folk Album –

2009 New Zealand Music Awards The 2009 New Zealand Music Awards was the 44th holding of the New Zealand Music Awards, annual ceremony featuring awards for musical artists based in or originating from New Zealand. Finalists for the three technical awards were announced on 6 A ...

. *Best Folk Album –

2012 New Zealand Music Awards The 2012 New Zealand Music Awards was the 47th holding of the annual ceremony featuring awards for musical recording artists based in or originating from New Zealand. Finalists for the three technical awards were announced on 3 October 2012, th ...

. *Songwriter –

2015 APRA Silver Scroll Awards The 2015 APRA Silver Scroll Awards was held on Thursday 17 September 2015 at Vector Arena in Auckland, celebrating excellence in New Zealand songwriting. The 2015 ceremony marked the 50th presentation of the Silver Scroll award. As well as honou ...

in New Zealand. She was one of five finalists, alongside others such as

Lorde Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer and songwriter. She is known for her unconventional style of pop music and introspective songwriting, and has been referred to ...

. Parsons has won the following awards: *Best Folk Artist - 2020

New Zealand Music Awards The Aotearoa Music Awards (previously called the New Zealand Music Awards), conferred annually by Recorded Music NZ, honour outstanding artistic and technical achievements in the recording industry. The awards are among the most significant that ...

. *Best Country Music Song –

2016 New Zealand Music Awards The 2016 New Zealand Music Awards was the 51st holding of the annual ceremony featuring awards for musical recording artists based in or originating from New Zealand. It took place in November 2016 at Vector Arena in Auckland and was hosted by ...

. *Best Independent Tour – 2016 MMF Music Awards (Music Managers Awards, New Zealand).

Discography

* '' Over My Shoulder'' (2009) * '' Red Grey Blue'' (2011) * ''

Drylands Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water. Drylands are zones where precipitation is balanced by evaporation from surfaces and by transpiration by plants (evapotranspiration). The United Nations Environment Program defines drylands as tropical ...

'' (2015) * '' Glass Heart'' (2018) * ''

'' (2022) * ''

'' (2024)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parsons, Mel 1981 births Living people 21st-century New Zealand women singers New Zealand women singer-songwriters New Zealand singer-songwriters