Monday , March 18 2024

Music Video Premiere: Joyann Parker – ‘Envy’ Suggests a New Queen of the Blues

Blues diva Joyann Parker releases her new music video today, entitled “Envy.” The single is from her new studio album, Hard to Love, which dropped April 13.

Hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Parker first performed in public in church, at the age of two. She never looked back. Now she’s a gifted instrumentalist and songwriter whose electrically-charged voice infuses the blues with delicious textures of luscious soul.

“Envy” rides a funky blues-flavored tune with a throbbing, elemental groove. A trilling organ holds down the high notes, while a cavernous bass supports the bottom ones. The middle relies on the tonal glow of a superb guitar, metallic and twangy.

Parker’s gorgeous, galvanizing voice guarantees the song’s feel, mood, and bluesy tang. It’s a voice full of dark sonic textures and nuanced timbres replete with venomous hues of envy, yearning, regret, and a yowling, growling tarnish that injects the tune with femme fatale intensity.

The lyrics relate Parker’s jealousy of her lover’s wife, as she speculates on the similarity of the beguiling lines he uses. Still, as powerful as the lyrics are, it is Parker’s rancorous delivery, full of gall and spite that impregnates the words with reproachful energy.

“Do you talk to her / Like you talk to me / Do you tell her that you love her / Say she’s all you need / Do you tell her she’s the best thing you’ve ever done / Do you look in her eyes and tell her she’s the one / Oh, and do you call just to hear her speak / Oh, do you talk to her like you talk to me.”

The video, directed by Daniel Cummings, merges shadows with hints of light into a ghostly presentation permeated by the sinister sonic mauling of the green-eyed monster.

“Envy” oozes the essence of begrudging intimacy and passionate emotions. The bluesy harmonics pulsate with tight, raw tones, and Joyann Parker’s soul-laden voice imbues the music with Jovian vitriol, evoking a welter of reactive feelings. So much so, that if she keeps it up, she’ll be the new Queen of the Blues.

Follow Joyann Parker on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

About Randall Radic

Left Coast author and writer. Author of numerous true crime books written under the pen-name of John Lee Brook. Former music contributor at Huff Post.

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