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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
4/16/95
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."
Award-winning guitarist studied
with Segovia
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.
Republished under license to Infonautics Corp. All
other rights reserved.
Jon Bream; Staff Writer, HAVE
GUITAR WILL TRAVEL // Tim Sparks, formerly of Rio
Nido, lets his fingers do the walking `round the
wide world of music., Star Tribune, 04-16-1995, pp
01F.
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