Today we’d like to introduce you to Edward Sparks.
Hi Edward, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was eight years old when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember vividly being captured by that image and sound. I wanted to be a musician and learn guitar. My parents bought me my first guitar in 1970, at age 15; before that, I was a master at “air guitar.” I took a half year of guitar in high school, and in the end, I could play scales up and down the neck, but I was frustrated because I couldn’t play a whole song. I went to the local music store and got the sheet music for the, then top ten song by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Looking Out my Back door,” and following the chord diagrams, learned it all the way through.
From that moment on, I was obsessed with the guitar. While my friends loved the “hard rock” groups of that time, I was into acoustic music, and it was thriving in the early 1970s. Solo artists like James Taylor, Cat Stevens, John Denver, Harry Chapin, Gordon Lightfoot, etc., were exploding. I learned harmonica because I wanted to play Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” Groups like Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, America, Fire Fall, etc., flourished. And I was still in love with the music of the Beatles, mostly their acoustic music, like “Hide Your Love Away” and “Norwegian Wood,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” and my favorite, “Here Comes The Sun” drove my desire to entertain with the guitar.
I graduated High School, and my mother wanted me to do something marketable and not rely on making a living as a “rock star.” I could see her point, so I went for a Media Production degree at Anne Arundel Community College. I got a job as a work-study student at the college I was attending in the field I was studying. When I graduated in 1975, I took a full-time job at that college and made a 44-year-long career there. In the few years before, and my final year of work before retirement, I had been building a small business called Pepperland Productions, with the plan for my own small media company after retirement. I retired on January 31, 2020, six weeks before the world shut down due to Covid. Backtracking to music, although a few friends and I occasionally played what we called “gigs” while I was in college, it wasn’t until 1980 that we got a real break. We called ourselves Free Flight, and we auditioned at a restaurant in Severna Park, Maryland, called The Oxbow Inn, and won a desirable weekly spot, every Friday each month. That gig lasted for about 12 years, roughly 6 years every Friday and about 6 every other Friday. We continued to play at other venues and our reputation grew. We added additional musicians and lost some along the way. We would secure a monthly spot at a new venue, play there for a few years and then move on. We also began booking annual events like festivals. In 1993, while playing in the band, another musician, Patrick Raymond and I helped open and ran a monthly acoustic music venue in a small church in Arnold, Maryland, called The Red Door Coffeehouse, which lasted for 10 years. In 2003 the band became a duo, and I am currently playing with one of the original members, Steve McCoy, as “Sparks & McCoy.” We are going on 42 years of gigging together now.
Since my retirement, being a musician has become my full-time job, and when not playing in the duo, I have found myself enjoying many solo gigs. Although COVID took its toll on Pepperland Productions, I still do media work now and then. At 70, professionally, I have led a charmed life and created more beautiful memories than I could have imagined! Beyond my media producer and musician career, I have a wonderful family, children, and five grandchildren.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I can think of two obstacles to being an acoustic-based musician in the mid-1970s.
• First, disco music was at its height, and we were still covering the Beatles, CSNY, James Taylor etc.!
• Second, I had just retired from my “day job” and was ready to expand my performance in my duo, Sparks & McCoy, and solo. We had bookings secured for the year and even into the following year. Interest in our music was growing, as was our following. It seemed that if we played a venue once, we were in!
My last day of work was January 31, 2020, and six weeks later, the world shut down due to COVID! COVID took all of our gigs instantly. As things slowly began to open back up, even with the restrictions on venue size vs. crowd size, we were just as slowly getting our bookings back. At the end of September of 2022, despite our following all the rules to be safe. We contracted COVID at a gig. We were down for about three weeks. Although I didn’t have the high temperatures and respiratory issues that sent people to the ER and killed people, I was sicker than I had ever been in my life! But the world reopened slowly, our bookings were gradually restored again and we soon were back in business. Nowadays, we are booked more than ever in my life and I plan to ride this wave for as long as the people come out and the venues will hire us!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have always considered myself a creative person. When i was little my mother said that I could entertain myself for hours with nothing but a pad of paper and my box of crayons. One day she moved the couch to clean and found that I had drawn an entire mural on the wall behind it! I have always loved art, music, and making things myself. I love woodworking and built everything from furniture to guitars. As far as guitars go, I do not create them to sell, only for my gigging and recording. When my daughter was little, I made her doll house furniture and found a genuine love for making miniatures. I began making miniature guitars and, to date, have made about 150, some for friends and family, some for fellow musicians, and some have gone to celebrities, such as Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Phil Everly, Emmy Lou Harris, to name a few. I have two in the Martin Guitar Museum at the factory in Nazareth, PA. I have a home recording studio where I have recorded my own music, produced CDs, recorded and produced other people’s music and produced video programs. I am proud of my 44-year career as a media producer at Anne Arundel Community College. Working in that college setting, I created videos and media for promotion and advertising, training and instructional programs for staff and students and videos documenting significant events at the college. I have been told that what sets me apart from others is how easy it is to work with me. I know how to quickly assess my client’s needs and wants from a project and spend time on the planning process so that the final product goes quickly and smoothly. I can find the good in and get along with just about everyone!
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I am lucky to have been born when I was, 1955 and to have experienced growing up through the sixties and seventies. The music was amazing, at least I think so. I was lucky to secure a job right out of college in my chosen field. I was lucky to have a long lasting career and now a pension and social security, so I can do what I want in my time remaining. I am lucky to have a wonderful family, kids and grandchildren! I am lucky to be 70 and still writing and recording my own music, my involvement in the arts and the income from it. I am rich in many ways and money is not the basis of it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sparks110.wixsite.com/home
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sparks-McCoy-255542014597232
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrstjyuLglbD3cGj1lCaNGA
