Tonya Parker Morrison
Tonya Parker Morrison specializes in unique entertainment articles referencing the most interesting personalities and concepts from music, movies and television. With more than 15 years of experience, she has conducted thousands of interviews which have run in hundreds of publications - online and off - worldwide.
Groundbreaking information and a uniquely laid back interview style make Parker Morrison one of the industry's most popular journalists.
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Groundbreaking information and a uniquely laid back interview style make Parker Morrison one of the industry's most popular journalists.
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Articles by Tonya Parker Morrison
March 30, 2007
Just like ZZ Top, fellow Texan Ezra Charles (a.k.a. Charles Helpinstill) is bad and nationwide.
In fact, for the multi-talented Beaumont native whose name is synonymous with Southern swing, the ties with one of rock music's most enduring acts are closely woven.
"That''s actually about the only...
March 29, 2007
One of my favorite lines (and there are SO many): "You take your girl and multiply her by four/now a whole lot woman needs a whole lot more...No need to fantasize since I was in my braces/a watering hole with the girls around and curves in all the right places." - From "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)"...
March 26, 2007
The idea of spring being a season of new beginnings may be horribly cliche, but for television host Josh Bernstein, it's reality.
After three seasons making history look hip by investigating archaeological mysteries in some of the planet's most exotic locales on Digging for the Truth, he's packing...
March 09, 2007
(An interview from 1999)
Things have not been easy lately for Hootie the Blowfish. Once pop music's favorite Southern sons, the band seemed to topple from their peak as quickly as they had ascended it.
The tide turned against the quartet after 1996's "Fairweather Johnson" failed to ignite the cha...
March 06, 2007
The late blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn once said that "without Buddy Guy, there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughn."
Vaughn wasn't the only musical mover and shaker to acknowledge George "Buddy" Guy's thunderous impact on modern music. After four decades as a seasoned bluesman, the list of artists ...
March 06, 2007
It wasn't easy becoming a legend, says Riverside's legendary blues singer.
As legends go, Etta James is still special enough to be called unique.
She succeeded in a rough-and-tumble male-dominated business and endured a hard-knock life that took a huge personal toll, yet managed to churn out ...
December 14, 2006
You know you're addicted to a show when, without prior warning, your friends and family automatically know not to call while it's on. Such is the case with The History Channel's enthralling series Digging for the Truth.
When I heard host Josh Bernstein would actually write a book detailing his adve...
December 09, 2006
If there's one place that just may be more down-home country than Nashville, Tenn., it's Texas. Just ask native Texan Lee Ann Womack.
She may look glamorous onstage - long golden hair cascading down her back, designer gown flowing in the breeze of a concert hall - but at heart, she's more earth ...
December 08, 2006
If succeeding in the music industry is all about getting by with a little help from your friends, then it's no wonder Jose Feliciano is a music dynamo.
With friends that range from Ricky Martin and Carlos Santana to longtime pal Glen Campbell, Feliciano's is a face that has shown up around the w...
December 08, 2006
Josh Bernstein needs a vacation.
As the peripatetic host of The History Channel’s Digging for the Truth series, the sedulous edu-tainer has much more on his mind this holiday season than baubles and bows.
With the dawn of a new year – and thus, the wrapping and debut of a new season of his hi...
May 08, 2006
He's a television host, an anthropologist, an environmentalist, a survival expert, a CEO and fledgling author, but one thing The History Channel's Josh Bernstein is not is Indiana Jones.
While it's true the straightforward Digging for the Truth host is a wearer of many hats, he's the first to po...
February 17, 2006
Ugh, I knew it was time for an update when the number of e-mails asking if I was still alive exceeded the number of e-mails from my mom asking when I'm going to "get married already." (Would that be wed-nagging vs web-nagging?)
So, here it is, lovely ones - the long overdue synopsis of what I'm wo...
December 23, 2005
And he comes bearing peanut M&M's, Kidsongs videos, soccer balls with splashy graphics and Madagascar fleece blankets. Well, okay, maybe he doesn't bring that loot to ALL of the tykes on his list, but that's what you'll get this year.
Making the last minute additions to my Christmas list and watch...
December 07, 2005
Billy Ray Cyrus has a problem. His trademark ponytail may be long gone, but critics still have a tendency to write off the country crooner, blessed with swiveling hips and a face just this side of pretty boy, as just another of crossover country's poseur poster boys.
If his recent resume has taug...
September 09, 2005
Somewhere beneath the vast, arid Peruvian plains, Josh Bernstein is crawling around underground, knee-deep in an aqueduct system that is over 2,000 years old. It's wet. It's dank. It's totally void of wiggle room.
The intoxicating aroma of twenty centuries' worth of what may or may not be mud as...
September 08, 2005
"Some believe in destinyAnd some believe in fateI believe that happinessIs something we createYou best believeThat I'm not gonna wait'Cause there's gotta beSomething more"
-- From the Sugarland song "Something More"
Kristian Bush is living large.
No, the male representative of uber hot country...
September 08, 2005
As sporadic fires rage, potentially diseased flood waters snake through the streets and New Orleans officials threaten forceful removal of hold-outs, Tracy Lawrence is on the road, but his heart is in the South.
In the midst of a hot fall tour, press for his new release Then and Now: The Hits Colle...
August 22, 2005
If Christian pop, hip hop and rap had a child, the offspring would most certainly be Toby McKeehan, better known as tobyMac. The former dcTalk member has conquered Grammy, started a record label and turned on a generation of listeners to a genre once thought of as anything but cool. And he's just ge...
August 22, 2005
In a modern world of gloss, glam and unattainable beauty, Superchic(k) is okay with being ordinary. The eclectic blend of two girls and five guys is striving not for perfection, but instead have found bliss - and beauty - in being normal.
The group doesn't mind being labeled with the Christian roc...
August 22, 2005
Just as ambitious tumbleweeds scurry across the Kansas plains in search of somewhere new, so too journeyed the members of the rock group named after their home state.
Formed in 1970 in Topeka, the first incarnation of Kansas was actually a melding of two bands, Saratoga and White Clover, helmed by...
August 21, 2005
What do you do with virgin past his prime? Well, bad puns and potty humor aside, you find a way to help him become a bit more worldly, of course. That's the premise of the uproarious comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin, starring fearlessly funny Steve Carell (of NBC's version of "The Office" and "Anchorma...
July 25, 2005
Brad Paisley may just be the most humble heartthrob ever. He's got a top ten hit on the Billboard country airplay charts ("Alcohol"), is releasing a new CD called "Time Well Wasted" on August 16 and is in the midst of one of the summer's most successful tours. So, what else could he possibly want?
...
July 25, 2005
He may have a penchant for "fast toys," but Lonestar drummer Keech Rainwater also knows the value of a nice, quiet fishing break.
Ask the Plano, Texas native how he copes with life within the whirlwind of country music success and he's got two words for you: fishing and family.
"There is somet...
July 23, 2005
Before he had a rock radio hit with "Cold," bass player Mitch James of Crossfade had nothing. Well, The Nothing, to be more accurate, one of the group's first incarnations since forming in the late '90s.
After beginning in a homemade studio, longtime Columbia, S.C., friends James and vocalist/gui...
July 23, 2005
Blood sucking aliens! Tom Cruise! Steven Speilberg! H.G. Wells! Need we say more?
Yes, it's officially summer and judging from the plethora of blockbuster flicks out in 2005, it's gonna be a long one.
Just about everyone I know was all psyched to see Tom Cruise save civilization in War of the Wo...
July 21, 2005
Josh Gracin may be the first aspiring singer to audition before Nashville, Tenn.'s, elite and not have his knees knock. That calm facade no doubt served the Michigan native well during the grueling process that was "American Idol 2."
"I was fourth overall, but I still ended up getting to live my ...
July 19, 2005
The Kentucky Headhunters just may be the epitome of Southern-fried country, but they are just as likely to rock and roll as pick and pluck.
The rowdy group from the Bluegrass State has made a career out of embracing both the old and the new, the controversial and the mundane, the raw and the polis...
July 19, 2005
My son AJ is autistic.
I know what you're thinking right now - half are saying "Man, that sucks" because you know what it is and the other half are going "What the hell is that?".
Autism has been filtering into the mainstream media lately, with features in national magazines, on primetime new...
June 28, 2005
It doesn’t take much to make Eddie Montgomery happy. The Kentucky native may be best known for being half of the country duo Montgomery Gentry, but he happily still shops for groceries unrecognized (sometimes) and just adores the simplest pleasures in life.
“I am not what you’d call a high maintena...
June 28, 2005
Scott Lucas is a man with a plan. His band, the Chicago-based Local H, has a full tour schedule ahead of them in the coming months, new music to work on and a legion of loyal fans that can’t seem to get enough of the former Subway sandwich shop worker and fellow musician, drummer Brian St. Clair.
...
June 28, 2005
Detroit coughed up a shocking new rock n' roller named Alice in a day when most of its famous offspring were automobiles.
As Motor City rolled out one new vehicle after another, they rocked to a beat that can still be heard today in newer, just as visual acts from the White Stripes to Insane Clown...
June 21, 2005
Jen Chapin is not a woman fond of grandiose ideas of superstardom. The pragmatic 32-year-old singer, musician and songwriter can thank her self-proclaimed practical nature and a lifetime of watching some pretty well known relatives live the life she now calls her own.
“I have two uncles who are gen...
June 19, 2005
Cruise, Holmes: “No date yet”
It’s official: Actress Katie Holmes (26) has said yes – she has the rock to prove it - to Hollywood hotshot Tom Cruise (42), who may just outdo his now legendary lively frenetic performance on Oprah with his rampant giddiness.
“Today is a magnificent day for me, I’m e...
June 19, 2005
Movie Review: “Madagascar”
DreamWorks Animation
Animated, Rated PG for very mild violence, crude humor and some adult-oriented themes
Well, I was hoping this season’s Shrek would arrive on the heat waves of summer, but alas, that is not the case. Though I’d heard from more than one person that ...
June 06, 2005
When Jim Strouse speaks, it is with focused, methodical thought and an easygoing manner that seems somewhat out of place amidst the blur of the Big Apple. Strouse, an Indiana native, carries in his voice the ring of a writer who has made his mark, a melding of confidence and pressure to outdo his de...
May 19, 2005
Before he had a rock radio hit with "Cold," bass player Mitch James of Crossfade had nothing. Well, The Nothing, to be more accurate, one of the group's first incarnations since forming in the late '90s.
After beginning in a homemade studio, longtime Columbia, S.C., friends James and vocalist/guita...