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Have Guitar, Will
Travel
Tim Sparks, formerly of Rio Nido,
lets his fingers do the walking `round the
wide world of music
Minneapolis Star Tribune
April 16, 1995
by Jon Bream
Tim Sparks won the national guitar
finger-picking championship in 1993 in
Winfield, Kan., but he didn't make any
announcements back home in Minneapolis or
send out any press releases. He merely
added the information to his resume.
Guitar ace Leo
Kottke asked Sparks to give him lessons
about harmony a few years ago, but Sparks
didn't put that choice assignment on his
resume. Sparks, best known for his work in
the 1980s Twin Cities vintage jazz group
Rio Nido, maintains a resume primarily so
he can apply for grants to continue his
various guitar explorations: such projects
as transcribing Tchaikowksy's "Nutcracker
Suite" for guitar or immersing himself in
the fado folk-guitar culture in
Portugal.
Sparks' resume
ought to bill him as Minnesota's most
adventurous, unassuming, underappreciated
guitarist.
Listen to Kottke,
who resides in Guitar Player magazine's
Hall of Fame as well as in Wayzata: "His
stuff is very difficult to play, but it
doesn't sound difficult. I think that's
real musicianship. He's really one of the
best musicians I know."
Dean Magraw,
probably the Twin Cities' most in-demand
jazz guitarist, will share the Guthrie
Theater stage Saturday with Sparks and two
European guitarists. Like Sparks, Magraw
is fascinated by the music of other
cultures. And he knows how hard it is to
make a living as a guitarist.
"Given all the
economic and artistic pressures we face
when the Muzaky-type artists are
commercially successful, those who take
risks are often ignored," Magraw said.
"The people who have the most to say are
not the ones working. Tim tries to stay
true to the music and true to his heart
and true to his own feelings."
In a roundabout
way, Magraw has explained why we haven't
heard much from Sparks since Rio Nido
broke up in 1987. Sparks, 40, has been
woodshedding, studying the music of other
cultures by traveling abroad and by
playing around the Twin Cities in Persian,
Brazilian, Greek, French, Jewish and other
ethnic bands.
"After the end of
Rio Nido, I'd had my fill of guitar in the
context of being the accompaniment to
something else, although I do a lot of
accompanying," Sparks said recently over
Chinese food. "What interests me is when a
person is playing {guitar} by themselves
and trying to carry all the lines
together: the motion, the bass line, the
chords, the melody and improvise. I want
to challenge the prevailing notions of
what constitutes real interesting guitar
music and contribute new work that other
players can utilize."
So even if he's an
accompanist, it's a special kind of
accompaniment - perhaps using an oud, a
Middle Eastern stringed instrument similar
to a lute, to back a cantor in a Jewish
choral concert. This spring Sparks was
hired to create African music for a CD-ROM
project about two bicyclists riding from
Tunisia to the Cape of Good Hope.
The road to the
oud
The oud (rhymes with food) has been a
curious adventure for Sparks. About six
years ago, while playing in a Brazilian
band, he received one from a friend in
Turkey. Kottke feared the instrument would
be a permanent detour for Sparks.
"About the time
the oud came along, I envisioned Tim
wearing one of those little leather hats
that makes you look like a bar stool, and
drinking some kind of Turkish coffee,"
Kottke said. "I thought we were losing
him; I thought he was getting Balkanized,
and we'd never hear from him again. But we
have, and he came back and brought it all
with him."
Kottke, in fact,
was fascinated by what Sparks has done
with his Middle Eastern studies, as
evidenced by his 1993 album "Balkan
Dreams."
"It sounded as if
he'd grown up in Sofia {Bulgaria} in his
dad's string band because he understood it
so well," Kottke said. "But he managed to
bring some Tim Sparks to it after a while,
so it no longer sounded like Bulgaria or
Minnesota. It sounded like something else.
It's very hard to do that. He can do that.
"Being an uneducated musician, I think one
of the dangers of being literate in music
{is that} you kind of lose your own voice.
Tim keeps growing his."
Sparks would blush
at the praise from someone he considers a
"cultural icon." To Sparks, who comes from
the rural South, the guitar is "a metaphor
for reconciling and expressing the
tensions and differences I see in the
world around me."
He has been
attracted to music in which artists strive
"to build a bridge to resolve a real
strong cultural tension - whether it's
music from the Balkans or the
Mediterranean or the Middle East or jazz,"
he said. "Jazz was a cultural attempt to
resolve the inherent cultural conflict
here in the United States.
"The guitar is a
common denominator to all these cultures.
So if I juxtapose a Celtic melody with a
Turkish rhythm, or a traditional northeast
Brazilian song form with a dance rhythm
that comes from Kurdistan, these are all
things that I've actually played. I try to
get that real feel so when you play, it
sounds like a boogaloo."
Redneck
roots
Musically, Sparks is one of the most
ethnically diverse players in the Twin
Cities, but his own ethnic background is
not readily apparent.
"I'm a redneck,
basically," he blurted.
Growing up near
Winston-Salem, N.C., he was influenced by
his grandmother, who played guitar and
piano in an Appalachian gospel quartet.
His first guitar lessons came from a
moonshiner uncle.
Because Sparks
lived in the county where the prestigious
North Carolina School of the Arts was
located, he was able to attend that high
school, where he studied classical guitar
with Jesus Silva, a protege of Spanish
guitar giant Andres Segovia.
Not long after
graduating from high school in 1973,
Sparks was on tour in a Midwestern R&B
band when he came to the Twin Cities to
visit a former North Carolina schoolmate,
guitarist Tony Hauser. He liked the
liberal society here, so he stayed.
He fell in love
with the publicist for the Guild for the
Performing Arts on the West Bank. Chyrll
Weimar had two young children, for whom
Sparks became an instant daddy. Now he has
four grandchildren, and Grandma does
promotions for the We Fest, the
country-music festival in Detroit Lakes,
Minn., of which she is part-owner.
Born on
Halloween
"He's the nicest guy on the planet,
whatever planet he lives on," said LeeAnn
Weimar, his sister-in-law, who promotes
concerts at First Avenue in Minneapolis.
"Of course, his birthday is Halloween. He
is in his own little world. He finds all
types of music interesting. I remember he
played at Thumper's {bar} in country
bands. He's done the Christmas strolling
at Lund's thing. He's a worker."
Kottke said that
Sparks is hilarious, though he can't
recall any specific jokes. Weimar goes on
about sitting around Sparks' south
Minneapolis house listening to him play
the oud and invent silly song titles like
"I'm in the Oud for Love."
Sparks' home
reflects his broad and eclectic interests:
a poster featuring reggae king Bob Marley,
window boxes he's painted Turkish style,
furniture he's painted with a Mexican
look, naive paintings by a North Carolina
artist, a chess game on the computer
screen, his huge finger-picking
championship trophy atop the stereo, his
grandchildren's bicycles on the front
porch.
"Tim has a
positive outlook. He's open to all kinds
of ideas, " said Magraw, who has toured
Europe with him. "He's always trying to
help people out." Sparks gave a Magraw
tape to Peter Finger, the German guitarist
who heads Acoustic Music Records, for
which Sparks records. Magraw ended up on
the German label, too.
Sparks has
finished recording his soon-to-be-released
album, "Altered Native," which includes
his adaptation of a Bela Bartok piece and
such original multicultural sojourns as
"Bluezookie" and "Bach and Aziya." The
guitarist has given a tape of the album to
Kottke and asked him to write liner
notes.
What does Kottke
say about his former teacher? "I'm Tim
Sparks' biggest fan."
Tim Sparks
Born/ Oct. 31, 1954, in Winston-Salem,
N.C.
Residence/ A house in south Minneapolis, a
farm in Detroit Lakes, Minn.
Family/ Wife Chyrll Sparks, promotions
director and part owner of the We Fest in
Detroit Lakes; two stepchildren, four
grandchildren.
Education/ North Carolina School of the
Performing Arts (with Minnesotan Tony
Hauser); master classes with Andres
Segovia.
Work experience/ Shortly after moving to
the Twin Cities in the mid-'70s, he joined
Rio Nido, a vintage vocal jazz group; he
also played with other bands, ranging from
country to jazz. Since Rio Nido disbanded
in 1987, Sparks has played in various
ethnic bands, including Mandala
(Brazilian), Robayat (Persian) and Marc
Stillman (Jewish wedding band), and worked
solo.
Recordings/ With Rio Nido: "I Like to
Riff," "Hi Fly" and "Voicings." Solo on
the Germany-based Acoustic Music Records:
"Nutcracker Suite" and "Balkan Dreams."
"Altered Native" is scheduled for release
later this year.
Awards and distinctions/ Winner of the
1993 National Fingerstyle Guitar
Championship at Winfield, Kan.; arranged
Russian folk song for solo guitar for the
1989 Guthrie Theater production of "Uncle
Vanya"; arranged Carla Bley's "Jesus
Maria" (written for piano and clarinet)
for guitarist Leo Kottke; received Jerome
Foundation fellowship to study fado music
in Portugal; received a grant from
Minnesota State Arts Board to study
Eastern European music, resulting in his
writing "Balkan Dreams Suite," which will
be published as an instructional book;
adapted Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite"
for guitar; published arrangements in
Guitar Player magazine.
Copyright 1995 Star Tribune.
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