Minton Sparks

McGonigel’s Mucky Duck presents Minton Sparks.

Minton Sparks fuses music, poetry, and her intoxicating gift for storytelling to paint word pictures of the rural South that put you square in the middle of the people and the places she knows like the back of her hand.

Imagine, if you will, Flannery O’Connor and the ghost of Hank Williams having an affair that results in the birth of an illegitimate child . . . . I have seen Minton Sparks. And if she’s not the ghost child of the woman who wrote Wise Blood and the man who sang ‘I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,’ then cotton doesn’t grow in a cotton field. — Marshall Chapman, writer for Garden & Gun

Minton Sparks is a wildly original poet, performance artist, novelist, teacher, and essayist born in a Tennessee college town and raised among her Southern family in and around Arkansas. She earned degrees from the University of the South and Vanderbilt University. Her appearances range from the prestigious Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival all the way to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Minton’s books, Desperate Ransom and White Lightning, and her writing have received wide acclaim from NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered and BBC’s Bob Harris Show.

Her performances have enthralled audiences across the United States and Europe. Her DVD,Open Casket, and three CD’s, which feature blues sensation Keb Mo’, the legendary Waylon Jennings, and the internationally acclaimed Irish songstress Maura O’Connell, are sought after worldwide.

She has appeared on stage with Ben Folds, John Prine, Punch Brothers, Jacob Dylan, Rosanne Cash, and country legend Pam Tillis. Minton was also chosen to perform at an exclusive TED.com event on Healthcare and the Arts in Nashville, Tennessee.

In addition to writing and performing, Minton teaches a writing/performance workshop,Create Your Story, at universities and professional organizations across the country. She recently taught at Summer Fishtrap in Enterprise, Oregon.

Accompanist John Jackson

John Jackson, Minton’s musical accompanist, is a brilliant guitarist and no stranger to the world of poetry and music.  He played in Bob Dylan’s band for six years, 1991-97.  He also was part of Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” Grammy winning tour, as well as Shelby Lynne’s Grammy winning “I am Shelby Lynn” tour. Jackson did a stint on Broadway performing in the Twyla Tharp/Bob Dylan play, “The Times They Are ‘a Changin‘.

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mintonsparks