Sista Monica takes firm control of her blues career

Randy Matin

Friday, Jan. 12, 2001 | 9:32 a.m.

Who: Sista Monica

Where: Boulder Station's Railhead.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday.

Cost: Free.

Information: 432-7777.

For eight years Santa Cruz, Calif.,-based blues singer Monica Parker, who goes by the stage name Sista Monica, has worked her way up in the club circuit.

Now she and her eight-piece band play mostly festivals (European and otherwise) formal theaters and parties that clients from her corporate-world dealings throw, including Christmas bashes for Apple Computer and George Lucas' annual holiday blowout.

Sista Monica performs Thursday at Boulder Station as part of the hotel's free blues series.

A woman of many hats, Parker recently phoned from the Northern California offices of e-commerce stalwart Excite, where she is a an executive headhunter while her band is in rehearsals.

"I will probably get finished with this contract (for Excite) right about the time my band is ready (to tour). Meanwise somebody gotta pay the bills," Parker says.

Parker, whose parents both hail from rural Arkansas, grew up in Gary, Ind., in a house filled with music and singing. Her mother favored Jackie Wilson and gospel tunes, and from age 9 little Monica would sing in church and around the house.

From those days comes her new recording of Wilson's '60s hit "It's a Shame, It's a Mystery" released as the lead single from album No. 3, "People Love the Blues" on Parker's own Mo Muscle label.

"It's a little bit more rockin' sound simply because I tend to have very high-energy shows. We end up dancing quite a bit and the audience dances, too. It just gets infectious after awhile," Parker says.

Where her earlier albums "Get Out My Way" and the self-titled "Sista Monica" featured more soul and gospel influences, "It's A Shame, It's A Mystery" is full-throttle, let-the-doors-fly-open blues rock.

"I put three guitars on all of the new songs which creates a pulsating rhythm and an undercurrent of high energy. But we still have the funk and I definitely will always remember my roots with the gospel."

Parker's first two albums close out respectively with "Precious Lord" and the medley "Amazing Grace/Motherless Child."

"Somewhere in the middle of the set I always turn to the people and say, 'I feel like goin' home,' " she says. "Home for me is the gospel and I never want to forget that. I tend to hold my spiritual values. I feel that I am one of God's children, and God is the source."

After working for U.S. Steel in Gary and later joining the Marines, in 1992 Parker caught her former neighbor, M.C. Hammer, performing his big hit, "Can't Touch This," on "The Arsenio Hall Show."

"I nearly leaped off the bed," Parker says. "If he can do it, I betcha I can, too. So I went right out and bought a microphone and put some carpet in the garage and just started singin'. I took good Aretha Franklin songs and good Gladys Knight songs and good Al Green songs. The kind of stuff I grew up with: blues, R&B and the soul thing."

Since her first club gig in August '92 Parker has picked up some prestigious awards, including a BAMMIE (a Bay Area Music Award) in 1998 and a W.C. Handy nomination for "Sista Monica" in the Best Contemporary Blues by a Female Artist Category (the Handy is the award of highest achievement for blues performers.)

Though she would welcome the attention of a major label, Parker has sold more than 25,000 copies combined of her first two albums through sistamonica.com, as well as e-retailers amazon.com and cdnow.com. She finds that she plays all of the same higher-profile gigs as artist on the major blues labels and in many cases finds that doing it herself has been a better deal.

"I've been to Holland, Switzerland, Great Britain. I go everywhere that artists on those labels go," Parker said. "There is not one place that they play that I have not gone or been invited to.

"A lot of times artists on those labels don't even have copies of their records to bring along for sale because the record companies won't make them available. Whereas I go to my warehouse. I pick up a coupla boxes of CDs. Give 'em to the guy and say, 'This is what we are taking with us.' "

Without giving away too much of "People Love the Blues," Parker says that beyond two cover songs, she's written the balance of the material with her piano player and producer Danny B.

"I tend to write songs that depict a strong woman but one who also gets the blues and can be sensitive and vulnerable," she says. "... Now I just hope we can continue to gain momentum because my goal is help carry on the blues for the next three generations." Randy Matin

writes reviews and feature stories for the Sun. Reach him at PacNewGr@aol.com or (714) 637-5342.