Parrish-Hundley

About Parrish-Hundley

Mike Parrish & Sammy Hundley are the front guys & driving force behind the Parrish-Hundley Band. Lifelong friends, since childhood, they've always shared a passion for music and music has ALWAYS been the strongest influence in both their lives. Mike often says, "You give me the title of a song & the name of the artist & I'll tell you where I was & what I was doing when I first heard it. Most Elvis fans can tell you where they were when the King passed away but music has always been a life marker for me & it marks everything. There's no doubt it always will."
Emerging from the pump jack speckled prairies & piney woods along with the Gulf breezes of Southeast Texas, Mike Parrish & Sammy Hundley bring a new sound to contemporary country, country rock and blues. For those of you who have no clue what a pump jack is, well, a pump jack is like a huge black see-saw that pumps up and down while pumping oil from an oil well and into a storage tank. Practically every one has seen a pump jack in person or, at the very least, in some movie. Some of these pump jacks even forged the sound that mimicked an off-beat Tom drum which was a sound that drifted into their windows upon the Summer night air mixed with the scent of honeysuckle & fresh cut grass as they slept in the perspective homes just a quarter mile apart. Mike & Sammy were living in the Community of Hull, often referred to as Hull-Daisetta, in Liberty County, completely off the beaten path. In fact, it it weren't for Farm to Market Roads 770 & 834, there wouldn't even be a beaten path. 99.9% of the entire planet had never even heard of Hull or Daisetta, Texas, at least not until May of 2008 when Daisetta had the world's attention when the largest sinkhole in the United States formed in Daisetta & became affectionately known as "Sinkhole De Mayo."
As young boys, it was early to bed & early to rise & a time when the world was a brand new magical place with much to be learned & much to explore. There were basically three channels on television with loads of cool stuff to watch in those days unlike todays satellite television which is comprised of hundreds of channels & virtually NOTHING worth watching most of the time. There were no social networks, computers, cell phones, iPads, iPods, iTunes, voicemail, email, text messaging or satellite radio but there was FM Radio. It was their radios that pulled the sounds of the most classic rock and country bands ever formed, from a station based in Houston (an hour to the west), & funneled right into the bedrooms & family vehicles of the Parrish-Hundley Duo. As odd as it may sound, Hull may have just as well been located on the moon, if it weren't for the beautiful countryside and an actual atmosphere, because even the astronauts of the Apollo missions got their radio from Houston just as Sammy & Mike did.
Sammy & Mike soaked in all the amazing sounds from the airwaves and swore that, when they were grown, they'd form a rock & roll band & they'd name this band "Black Diamond." That title had nothing to do with black gold (oil) or diamond mines, that were none existent in that area, but it had everything to do with their favorite group, "the hottest band in the world! KISS!" We've explained what a pump jack is so we'll go on to tell you that these were also the days of 33 1/3 vinyl records & 8-track tapes but to save time explaining, & limited bio space, please Google 8-Track Tapes. Back in the day, the boys didn't Google anything other than girls & they may still be guilty of googling a young lady or two from time to time. Sammy's first vinyl record & Mike's first 8-Track was a Kiss album known to the world as "Double Platinum," & Ace Frehley was the coolest damned guitar player that ever came from outer space! Both Sammy & Mike imitated Ace even though they knew neither of them would look as cool as Ace did with that smokin' Les Paul Sunburst & platform shoes. Then they were also influenced by the bands of their fathers, the greats like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Pride, Willie Nelson, Ray Price & the list goes on & on. On the other hand there was Heart, Peter Frampton, Bob Seger, Styx, Kansas, Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, did we say Kiss, & ZZ Top. So there was classic country & classic rock (funny how classic country was acceptable by their parents but that evil devil music was another story). Sammy's dad saved him from the devil by sending his Double Platinum album to hell, burning it, but Mike was a bit more fortunate & managed to hang on to his 8-Track. Believe it when you hear that they literally wore that album out. There was also the Gospel sounds of Elvis, the rockin' 50s & 60s, BLUES, pop, so much to digest, no way to know what was best, so it was just ALL good. They were Queen fans, Glen Campbell fans, Stevie Wonder fans, KC & the Sunshine Band fans, they were Jim Reeves fans and Chubby Checker fans, Nazareth fans and James Taylor fans, there was a complete goulash of influences that infiltrated their hearts & souls & no way to sort it out other than to just let it flow through them, write their own tunes & examine the results. To this day you can hear bits of hundreds of influences in every original tune.
After Mike did a hitch in the (expired link). Army & about 16 years as a Texas Peace Officer, while Sammy worked in various technical jobs, including but not limited to opticianry while establishing a career in music, both boys, now men, had returned home in the days before the great Sinkhole De Mayo & finally recorded an album in 2006. They won several awards in the European music world & in 2010 they garnered a nomination by the Academy of Texas Music for Best Live Band of the year.
Armed with an arsenal of those classic influences the band is proud to present the album "Texas in the Man" & the brand new release "What a Country Boy Knows."
Almost out of space so if you want to know more you'll have to Google us but Please! - Be gentle.