A visit to Jenny Parrott‘s website reveals a journal of sorts. It was initially written in the third person, but following her solo debut, When I Come Down (2017), which had a cracking review in the Austin Chronicle, who also chose it as one of their Top 10 albums of the year, Jenny began writing personal updates. Having read it, she is clearly a voice of positivity and an activist in the truest ‘World Building’ sense of the word.
A glance through it reveals the incredible journey she has been on since releasing that debut album which began with 55 shows in three states over three months and just carried on…she seems to have an endless supply of energy, although she has had her share of struggles with panic attacks, which she briefly touches on.
There were the DIY tours (lots), hosting monthly women-only jam (a safe place to explore), singing with a classical ensemble, coming out as bisexual/pansexual after years of fearing homophobia in her family and community, becoming a member of feminist punk band Genital Panic, scoring a documentary, playing a series called Baby Bloomers (yep…for babies) at a children’s museum, vocal workshops, songwriting events, got and recovered from COVID…
She’s pretty amazing, and that’s much how I’d sum up her singing three-plus octave voice.
American icon Kinky Friedman has been quoted as saying Jenny Parrott’s tunes are “the best songs I’ve heard since Christ was a cowboy!,” that statement isn’t going to wear out too soon.
Next month, she releases her second solo album, The Fire I Saw (out Nov. 12th – pre-order here), on which she promises to lay it on the line:
“I am trying to be myself with the songs and performances, instead of putting out a record with the right number of happy-sounding songs on it,” she says. “You don’t have to use a dude’s guitar part to spare his feelings! That will only dim the fire within you that you saw, and you’ve got to feed it.”
For her latest single, Georgica, she backs up the statement about her album “A lot of the songs are about life, death, and faith”.
Jenny tells us:
“Georgica is the name of my hometown friend’s little girl. Her mother – the Grandma – asked me to write a song as a gift to her. We aren’t especially in touch anymore – I live very far away – but the song has a vibe of sending warm, maternal, motherly well-wishes through time and space from an older source to a younger one, with the understanding that there’s birth and death, and hopefully a whole lot of nice stuff in-between. It’s almost like a prayer and call for hope for young female energy. When I think about this song, I almost feel like I’m up in space, singing to the planet.”
There is nothing to not like about Jenny Parrott, be sure to get more of her in your life. Georgica is also our Song of the Day.
Pre-Order The Fires I Saw (Nov 12th) via Bandcamp: https://jennyparrott.bandcamp.com/
Image Credit: Photo by Carrie Jane Fink. Design by Catfish