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Nashville performance artist Minton Sparks dares you to define her: her spoken word/honky-tonk hybrid performances elicit whoops and hollers from beer-swilling good ole boys and latte-sipping intellectuals alike, because she’s doing something wholly new—rebel storytelling with marrow-deep power and resonance. Now this Grand Ole Opry star is raising the bar with her newest album release, Gold Digger, and her wildly unique performance video, “Time Flies.”
Whatever she’s doing, it’s working: Sparks has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC’s Bob Harris Show, and WoodSong’s Old-Time Radio. She’s also shared the stage with country and folk heavyweights like Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and Punch Brothers.
On the one hand, Sparks is a decorated poet, playwright, and author who’s been invited to prestigious events like Berry College’s Southern Women Writer’s Conference (alongside Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons) and the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
On the other hand, she’s a blue-collar troubadour who’s performed in the American Songbook Series at the Lincoln Center, appeared at the venerable Old Towne School of Folk Music, and served as teller-in-residence at the Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival.
Time Flies is the first video to capture the essence of Sparks’ performing power: part music video, part spoken word piece, she takes us on a ride in a “jet-black, thin-backed Cadillac hearse” driven by a funeral-bedecked “prophet named Time.” This midnight cruise grapples with choice, regret, and the inevitability of time’s passing—and with Sparks’ signature Southern poetic style, we can’t help but enjoy (and eerily identify with) the ride.
On her fifth album release, Gold Digger, Sparks breaks new ground (without losing the hands-on-hip attitude of her earlier releases) by enlisting legendary guitarist John Jackson—a seasoned road warrior who has played with Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne, and Tom Jones. Gold Digger’s first half might take you to the Delta, but Side B takes you on an airboat up to Nola. Guitarist Joe McMahan’s soulful Dixieland licks are accompanied by David Jaques (upright bass), and Shad Cobb (fiddle and banjo), making for what Nashville Scene and Rolling Stone Country contributor Jewly Hight describes as a “sinewy swing.”With her new releases, Sparks has struck a match under “ordinary” artistry—and she’s setting the performance world on fire.
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