Freddy Parish is an award winning singer/songwriter, guitarist and banjo player out of Nashville, TN. His EP A Cold July, released in 2021, blends old time, bluegrass and classic country and was described by ForFolkSake as "a mix of lyrical brains and musical brawn." He has opened for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Marty Stuart.
Freddy Parish grew up in Sonoma County, California, just down the road from where Jack London wrote "Valley of the Moon," named for the mythic translation of the Miwok "Sonoma." His Arkansas born father inspired a lifelong love of country music, from the poetry of John Prine, to the gentle love songs of Don Williams. After spending a year of high school studying abroad on the Baltic Coast in Ainazi, Latvia, he went on to spend his formative years traveling the country taking odd jobs and writing songs, and later returned to school to study Music Composition, Audio Production, and Poetry at the Evergreen State College in Washington.
After spending time in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, Freddy began tracing back the roots of country music, along with his own Ozark family heritage, in a study of old time fiddle and banjo traditions. In 2018 he won 1st place for old time banjo at the West Virginia Open Fiddle and Banjo Contest, and his song "A Pale Blue" was chosen by Nashville Musician Association president Dave Pomeroy in the Passport to Nashville songwriting contest. Upon settling in the Southwestern border town of Tucson, Arizona, he founded the Old Town String Band, who in 2018 released a collection of traditional songs and tunes entitled "Last Chance." The group established a monthly residency to showcase old time and traditional country music at Tucson's now shuttered listening room El Crisol. In 2021 he released an EP of original songs entitled "A Cold July" and has taken up a monthly residency at the iconic Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson. He has opened for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Marty Stuart, Josh Rouse, Sam Outlaw, and others.
Freddy continues to pursue his own more contemporary songwriting in the Country, Roots, and Americana genres through story telling, poetic imagery, and themes of heartache and love, existentialist dread and hope, courage, vulnerability, and the ever beckoning open road.
