Birthday profile

Alan Parker (musician)

Alan Parker, English guitarist and songwriter

Born
August 26, 1944
Age in 2026
82
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1944

About Alan Parker (musician)

Alan Frederick Parker (born 26 August 1944) is an English 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, CCS and Serge Gainsbourg, together with his own studio session bands Hungry Wolf and Ugly Custard. 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 "Holy Holy" and "1984", Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot", Mike Batt's "The Ride to Agadir" and the Top of the Pops theme music version of "Whole Lotta Love". He has also recorded a number of albums for the De Wolfe Music and KPM Music libraries. Parker's later work comprised compositions for film and television. His television work includes Angels, Moody and Pegg, Minder, One Summer, The Glory Boys, Dempsey and Makepeace, French Fields, Room at the Bottom, 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). He also contributed music for three children's series; Gideon, Teetime and Claudia and Snowy and the Buttercup Buskers. Parker is also known to have owned Jimi Hendrix's Epiphone acoustic guitar, which was given to him by Hendrix in March 1970. He is also the father in law of the comedian and actor Ben Miller.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Alan Parker (musician) was born

Alan Parker (musician) was born in 1944. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1944

  • #1 song"Swinging on a Star" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieGoing My Way
  • Best-selling bookStrange Fruit – Lillian Smith

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGreen Bay Packers win NFL Championship
  • Top headlineD-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6
  • Technology milestoneHarvard Mark I computer begins operations
  • Defining fadBobby socks
  • Notable inventionKidney dialysis machine
  • World population2.39 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population138.4M

1944 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Alan Parker (musician)'s birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19442026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$5,800$435,000
Average income$4,200$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population138.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.