Alan Sparhawk is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist and vocalist for bands Low and Retribution Gospel Choir.
Biography
George Alan Sparhawk was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up in Utah. He met Mimi Parker when he was 9, after his family moved to Minnesota. Sparhawk began writing his own compositions at an early age. He later married Parker and eventually began performing with her in the band Low in Duluth, Minnesota in 1993. Low released their first album in 1994. As of 2015, Low has released eleven full-length studio albums. As of 2010, the group is composed of founding members Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, joined by newer addition Steve Garrington. The music of Low is characterized by slow tempos and minimalist arrangements. Early descriptions sometimes referred to it as rock subgenre called "slowcore". However, Low's members ultimately disapproved of the term. Parker and Sparhawk's striking vocal harmonies represent perhaps the group's most distinctive element; critic Denise Sullivan writes that their shared vocals are "as chilling as anything Gram and Emmylou ever conspired on—though that's not to say it's country-tinged, just straight from the heart." Sparhawk is also a member of the blues-roots band Black Eyed Snakes, the blues-dub jam band Los Besos, and the rock band Retribution Gospel Choir. He also occasionally plays solo shows in his hometown. As a solo artist, Sparhawk released his debut album entitled Solo Guitar in August, 2006. He also released a track on a various artists compilation, Songs for the End of the World, as Hollis M. Sparhawk & Her Father, and the track "Be Nice To People With Lice" on the various artists compilation albumSee You on the Moon!. In 2007 he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon. Sparhawk has done charity work with the Maasai tribe in Kenya. After a friend of his became a friend of the village of Namuncha, he played a Christmas show in order to raise funds to build a school there, where students had previously been meeting in the shade outside. He calls the experience of visiting the Maasai one of the most spiritual of his life. Alan and Mimi live in Duluth, Minnesota, with their two children. They are members of the Mormon faith, about which Sparhawk has said, "our spiritual beliefs encompass our whole life and understanding of who we are and what we do." In 2012, Sparhawk, along with vocalist and fiddle playerGaelynn Lea, created the group A Murder of Crows. Their first album, Imperfecta, was released in June 2012. Sparhawk has tuned his guitar to Open G since the late eighties, saying, "now it's the only way I know how."
