Tanya Parker

Brings Her Voice To Local Audiences

By Kendra Bobowick

Originally from Texas, Sandy Hook resident Tanya Parker, 34, sings with The One-Eyed Pig house bandThe Wagon Wheel, hosts karaoke nights each Wednesday at Senior Poncho’s in Southbury, and has pursued a love of music since childhood. She is employed as a bank teller, and is raising three daughters, Lyrica, 13, Ariana, 11, and Faerin, 8.

During a quiet morning recently, she offered her memories and insights on music.

Why music? Standing in a home cluttered with creativity — from instruments and books to CDs and notepads — Ms Parker spoke about her musical background.

“I grew up with my dad [Rich Lessard] playing all the time. [He] played in a rock band and a jazz band. He played almost every night of the week,” she said.

Pouring coffee while excusing the clutter in an adjoining room she laughed, “We don’t have a dining room. We have a drum room…” She lives with boyfriend and drummer Mark Rudzinski in Sandy Hook, in a house that offers a view of Lake Zoar. Sitting to drink her cup beside a woodstove, fingers knitted around her mug, Ms Parker looked toward a 1962 Gibson guitar that had been her father’s.

“I had to ask him to have it restored,” she said, explaining that to restore and restring the instrument for Ms Parker, a left-handed player, meant altering the guitar from its original form. “It was either don’t play it, or restore it and play.”

Thinking of her father, she said, “We didn’t get along growing up; I am my father’s daughter!” But now she looks back fondly to the days when her music began.

“I grew up with it, and it keeps me sane,” she said. Setting down her cooling coffee, she picked up the ends of her long hair, remembering her father’s influence again: “He played in a rock and jazz band; his hair was as long as mine.”

Although she has her guitars, Ms Parker’s primary enjoyment is voice.

“I have been singing since I could talk,” she said. She would sing for relatives and friends, and began writing down songs when she was as young as eight years old. With those first tentative steps toward music she grew up nurturing a pastime of her own creative expression.

A Best Moment? At 11 years old, Ms Parker remembers a day in 1988 when she was at a racetrack where her brother had entered a qualifying race for BMX. Looking at the grounds around her, she said, “I saw this huge room with a stage — there is nothing like it in Connecticut.”

Remembering that view through those 11-year-old eyes again, she said, “It was huge. They had a singing contest, and I entered. It was the only contest I ever entered.”

She remembers when her turn arrived to sing. “I sang the first two lines and froze,” she said. “The problem was, I don’t remember [the lyrics] now, and I didn’t remember then.

“I remember the words now…the song was ‘Bop’ by Dan Seals.”

While standing on stage and staring at the crowd, someone began whispering in her ear. “It was the guitarist. He came up behind me and fed me the words,” she said.

Despite freezing in front of her audience, Ms Parker admitted, “I was bit.” The performance bug had her, she said. “I was determined to do better after that. I sang whenever I could.”

The moment she frozen “was the best in a way — wow, I finished the song, everyone clapped, the lights were on me; that was the biggest stage I have ever been on.” Her future goal is to sing for at least 1,000 people. “Some day,” she said.

Noting two other early efforts, she said that at 15, with her “big Texas hair,” Ms Parker was in a metal band. “We never got out of the garage,” she said. She later joined another band and “we had a gig,” she said. “No one showed up.”

Is music freedom? “It’s how I deal with the world,” she said. “It runs in the family, even the dog sings!” Some people work out or talk or clean, but she writes music to deal with stress, she said.

“You find that in moments when life is good — there is no heartache — that you write less, but when life is miserable you write, but not always miserable stuff.”

Her influences reach back to 1950s and 60s rock “up to Reba McEntire,” she said. “I still love her, but I have expanded a bit.” Noting that pop-country singer Taylor Swift is young, she at least writes her own songs.

“I admire people who perform their own work, there is a level of integrity in writing your own material.” She enjoys being creative, she said.

Can you imagine life without it? “It’s like imagining life without your kids once you’ve had them.”

There was, however, a seven-year period when she did not sing.

“You hear of kids that like their mother’s singing … well Lyrica didn’t.” Instead, her daughter would cry. “I think it was an intensity issue. When I sing I go all out.” Remembering a bad day in the past, Ms Parker said, “She marched up to me and said, ‘Mommy, stop screaming.’

“From then on, I dedicated my life to the girls, she said. Ms Parker stopped singing and songwriting for seven years, which she says now was “pure torture.”

“I really went off the deep end towards the end of that time, and I think [lack of song] was part of the reason. When I don’t write, I don’t feel complete. I feel like there is a part of me that I am stifiling.”

What’s it like to step out of bank teller mode and into the singer?

“The better question is, ‘What’s it like to step out of singer-musician mode and be a bank teller?’ I’m not the conservative type, I’ve never been one to keep my mouth shut, or not say what’s on my mind — I have to do that at my day job! And that’s just it. That’s my day job. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not who I am. It’s not the foundation of my life.”

Where To Hear The Wagon Wheel: Ms Parker and her boyfriend Mark Rudzinski, along with another guitarist and bass player, used jam regularly at Dewey’s in Seymour. When that gig was up, Tanya and Mark took the opportunity play locally.

Mr Rudzinski, who also lives in Newtown, spoke with Jay Daly at The One-Eyed Pig at 71 South Main Street in Newtown, and he and Ms Parker became the basis of a house band that hosts the open mic nights on Thursdays (alternating weeks with another local band, The Adults).

Ms Parker sings with The Wagon Wheel.

“One night after we played “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show, [Mr Daly] yelled, ‘Give it up for The Wagon Wheel!’ That was it, we had a name.” Contributing their talent to the band on guitar, bass and vocals are Joe Ballaro, Ed Jones on guitar, Rob Liptrot on guitar and bass, Mr Rudzinski on drums, and occasionally, Tucker Callendar on fiddle.

Ms Parker is currently working on her first solo CD and hoping to have it finished by early 2012.

Learn more about the band at The Wagon Wheel’s Facebook page, or visit www.TanyaParkerMusic.com.