Alan Parker (musician)

Alan Frederick Parker (born 26 August 1944) is a British guitarist and composer.

Parker was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, and was trained by Julian Bream at London’s Royal Academy of Music. He had a successful career as session guitarist starting in the late 1960s, and played with Blue Mink, The Congregation, Collective Consciousness Society and Serge Gainsbourg.

Much of his session work has gone uncredited, but he has been named as the electric guitarist on Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man", the Walker Brothers' "No Regrets", David Bowie's "1984", Mike Batt's "The Ride to Agadir" and the Top of the Pops theme music version of "Whole Lotta Love".

Parker's later work comprised compositions for film and television. His television work includes Angels, Minder, The Glory Boys, Dempsey and Makepeace, French Fields, Red Fox, ITN's News At Ten, and the BBC series Walking with Cavemen and Coast. His film scores include Jaws 3-D (1983), American Gothic (1988), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and Alex Rider: Stormbreaker (2006).

Parker is also known to have owned Jimi Hendrix's Epiphone acoustic guitar, which was given to him by Hendrix in March 1970.