The son of a Pentecostal pastor who hails from Sanford, NC,
Ivan Parker has been a rising star in the world of country-gospel since the early 1980s. Rather than tapping his more than one dozen albums,
The Best of Ivan Parker is an audio compact disc issued in tandem with the identically titled DVD of live tour extracts gleaned from
Parker's passionate performances on
Bill & Gloria Gaither's Homecoming Gospel series, dating from the early 2000s. At times dramatically restrained and theatrically contemplative,
Parker generally leads his fellow musicians and large, ecstatic audiences in explosively demonstrative, heartfelt, singalong outpourings of joyous devotion taken at rousing tempos. In keeping with certain tendencies in the contemporary Pentecostal Church, "Statue of Liberty" and "God Bless the U.S.A." emphasize firm, unashamed links between church and state. ~ arwulf arwulf