Randy Parsons & Friends, East Hampton, NY
RANDY PARSONS
Biography
Randy Parsons (a.k.a. Randall and Randall T. Parsons)
Songwriter, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, vocals
Randy Parsons was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and spent his first two years on nearby Signal Mountain. Despite his southern origins, however, he grew up in New England and spent his adult life in and around New York City. He now lives in East Hampton, New York, amongst the farm fields, ocean beaches, working people and tourists of eastern Long Island.
Randy began playing guitar and performing in bands in the 1960's. He grew up delighting in the music coming out of the FM radio: the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, English and American Blues, Motown and the jazz and Broadway show tunes his parents like listening to.
Although Randy studied violin and piano, it was the guitar that really resonated. And, although he has performed as a singer, on acoustic and electric guitar and electric bass, his focus now is on writing and recording primarily for film and tv with his friends and collaborators: Marlon Saunders, John Margolis, Nancy Atlas, George Wurzbach, Mike Mandel and Tim Buppert.
Randy studied music at the Juilliard School, New York University and the New School in New York, and did the songwriters workshop circuit there with Hugh Prestwood, Henry Gaffney, Jeff Franzel and Shirley Washington. He studied lyric writing with Pat Pattison at Berklee. Randy performed solo and with a band in New England, New York and Los Angeles, including at the former Folk City (NYC), the Bitter End (NYC), the Stephen Talkhouse (Amagansett, New York) and Guild Hall (East Hampton, New York) and accompanied Grammy award winning songwriter Hugh Prestwood, on electric bass opening for Crystal Gayle in concert.
Randy's songs are played on college and commercial radio in the US and abroad. He has four CD's: City and the Sky (1977); Right from the Start (1999); Go Ahead and Love Someone(2002),and Morning Sky (2009), available at CDbaby.
Randy's song “Sweet Motion” was given an Honorable Mention as one of 56 finalists out of 6000 entries in the 2003 CMT/NSAI song contest; “Morning Sky,” won first place in the Boston Folk Festival songwriting contest in 2005. His songs and acoustic guitar pieces support various film and tv productions: “Lucia Walk on The Beach” was used in the ABC Family hit series, Falcon Beach, and, his guitar instrumental "Sag Harbor Blues" was included in the Public Television series, Roadtrip Nation. Randy's music is included in the Pump Audio library at Getty Images where it has been placed in film, tv and advertising projects.
Randy and his publishing company Lily Hill Music are affiliated with ASCAP. Lily Hill Music is also represented by the Harry Fox Agency in New York. He also plays bass for the Hyzer Hillbillies in Andes, New York.
