About Me
Biography
Fusing music, poetry and her intoxicating gift for storytelling, wildly original spoken word artist Minton Sparks releases her latest triumph, Open Casket. Her debut live show DVD is yet another ground breaking performance that further proves Sparks is in a category all her own. Sparks peeks over the edge into the warm spot where most would prefer
sleeping relatives lie. Open Casket is a raucous, provocative, brilliant one-woman show featuring Minton alongside worldclass musicians: guitarist John Jackson, blues pianist Steve Conn, guitar and mandolin virtuoso Pat Flynn and special guest, Irish singing sensation, Maura OConnell. Open Casket was produced by Ruckus Film Co., a 25-year old Nashville-based fi lm and television production company. Ruckus is probably best known for their work with Jim Varney on the Ernest stuff--commercials, television shows and
movies; and for such Emmy-award-winning television shows as Live From the Bluebird. Coke Sams of Ruckus Films directed the DVD. He became involved after a friend gave him a copy of Mintons fi rst CD, Middlin Sisters. Sams says: You really have to see Minton to fully understand what an incredibly visual artist she is. What we did in Open Casket is
present an entertaining cross section of Mintons characters and their stories and do it for a live audiencemusic and all.
In 2006, Sparks unique brand of poetry and music was featured nationally on the NPRs All Things Considered and internationally on the BBCs Bob Harris Show, along with the syndicated Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. Sparks was thrilled to open for John Prine this year. She performed at the 2006 Americana music festival MerleFest, receiving a
thunderous reception. This spring she wrapped up a four part Tennessee Performing Arts Series, Minton Sparks and Friends featuring Jessi Colter and Rodney Crowell, and played to sold-out houses and rave reviews each night. Sparks has performed at New York Citys Bowery Ballroom, opening for Ben Folds and at the Bowery Poetry Club in
Manhattans East Village. She received rave reviews recently in Santa Barbara, California at the Trinity Backstage Songwriter Series and has showed her slip at Mississippi Public Broadcastings Thacker Mountain Radio recorded in Oxford, Mississippi. Minton Sparks travels extensively, performing at various Universities, clubs, and music and poetry festivals sharing her brand of performance poetry and her workshops on creative writing with audiences nationwide. Her most recent CD catalogue release was Sin Sick, produced by Grammy winning Gary Paczosa, (Reba McEntire, John Prine, Alison Krauss, The Dixie Chicks), and guides us into the souls dark struggle led by Sparks riveting spoken word
and is punctuated with poignant comic relief. On this recording Sparks picks the lock on her familys hidden stories, drawing listeners into her world with charming familiarity and heart-breaking candor, pulling each character up into her arms for a memorable dance across the stage. Her collaborators on Sin Sick include Nickel Creeks mandolinist Chris Thile, veteran Bob Dylan guitarist, John Jackson, piano virtuoso, Steve Conn and bluegrass sensation, Abigail Washburn. Sparks CD debut on Dualtone, Middlin Sisters, was one of the fi nest spoken word recordings issued in America in more than ten years [Thom Jurek allmusic.com]. On that recording she collaborated with the late, legendary Waylon
Jennings, and current singer/songwriter sensation Darrell Scott. Her second CD, This Dress, won Spoken Word Record of the Year in 2004 at the Just Plain Folk Music Awards, and got the nod from the Chicago Sun Times for Top Five Off the Beaten Path Records of 2003. This Dress features collaborations with artists like Keb Mo and Irish singer, Maura
OConnell. Sparks graduated from the University of the South with a BA in Psychology and then from Vanderbilt University in 1991 with a Masters of Education in Human Development Counseling. Awarded the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship in 1998, Sparks soon began to teach poetry within the Tennessee high school system offering classes that were funded by the fellowship. Sparks serves as adjunct professor of Psychology at Tennessee State University for the past 13 years in addition to teaching several classes in Womens Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University in 1994. She resides in Nashville
with her husband and two children.
