Wednesday Video Spotlight: John Parker Millsap
In this week’s Wednesday Video Spotlight, check out this impressive performance by John Parker Millsap, 18, of Purcell, who will be playing a headlining set with red dirt mainstay Cody Canada Friday at Outlaws in Stillwater during the big Red Bull Gypsy Cafe.
John Cooper of the Red Dirt Rangers met the Purcell talent at the Tuesday Night Music Club in Cushing and told me that Millsap is “one of the finest young performer/songwriters I’ve ever seen at that age, ever.” When Red Bull tapped Cooper to organize the Gypsy Cafe, he decided to pair Millsap with Canada in one of the headlining slots, even though Canada and Milsap have never met.
The two-day Red Bull Gypsy Cafe will bring more than 30 longtime players and promising newcomers to the red dirt music movement’s birthplace of Stillwater for the filming of an online mini-documentary on Thursday at The Farm. The house may be gone, but that’s the site where the late Bob Childers, known as “the godfather of red dirt music,” once lived and turned his home into a gathering place for musicians. It is the point of origin for red dirt music, a mix of rock, country, folk and more, bluegrass, blues, Western swing and honky tonk. Red dirt is the first genre that will be chronicled for a new online docu-series called Red Bull Roots.
After the private gathering and filming session Thursday, the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe goes public Friday with a music festival at four venues on or near Washington Street, also known as The Strip. The music wills start at 7:30 p.m. Friday and play into the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Unlike most red dirt festivals, the organizers are pairing the players into duos, giving the fans and players alike a singular musical experience. For example, Cooper and fellow Rangers Ben Han and Brad Piccolo will be playing in three separate duets, with Han pairing with Jacobs, Piccolo with Skinner and Cooper with LaRue “because we have a real long history. I got Stoney his first raise, and he still crows about it.”
Judging from the schedule, the event will feature some great on-off duos, but Canada and Millsap definitely looks like a set to catch.
To read my full story on the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe, click here.
-BAM
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