By Stephen Pederson - Arts Reporter - Halifax Herald

Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival - August 9 2003

Scott Parsons, a finger style reggae and Mississippi Blues performer of outstanding accomplishment , followed the intermission. Guitar pickers can often surprise you with their virtuosity. But when it comes to musical richness, you can't beat the finger style and it's potential for five part harmony and lively figuration above the bass, especially from a player as full of musical invention and technical grace as Parsons - despite his constant concern with the humidity making his fingers stick to the frets.

Jupiter Wise - "This isn't just a good first album, this is an outstanding album."
- Nils Ling, CBC Radio

"Running the stylistic gamut from the warm, relaxed, Harder They Come reggae grooves to blues to country to jazz, Jupiter Wise is an astoundingly mature realized work. Parsons is a distinct and compact songwriter and an understatedly soulful vocalist; the man has to be seen as the most talented performer on PEl."
- Kirby Ferguson, the Buzz

Nice to Wear - "Parsons long overdue third album, he proves once again that he's got all the right stuff to go the distance. This ought to be the album that takes him there."
- Doug Gallant Entertainment, the Guardian  

THE GUARDIAN

Scott Parsons is one of those artists who makes you stop and shake your head. Why, you have to ask yourself, is someone with so much to offer not signed to a major label? It can't be his music. Parsons is a gifted songwriter, a solid musician and an emotionally expressive vocalist with a powerful set of pipes that can take a song anywhere he wants that song to go.

That he had something to offer was clear the first time I saw him pull himself onto a stool on the lawn of Confederation Centre some 30 years ago, clutching a guitar that was almost as big as he was, and belt out a piece of music. On Nice To Wear, Parsons long overdue third album, he proves once again that he's got all the right stuff to go the distance. This ought to be the album that takes him there. Since the release of his last album, Parsons has produced a sizeable body of work and a dozen of the best are packed into Nice To Wear, which he co-produced with respected producer James Carrier.

Parsons draws on many of the same influences today that he has drawn on for much of his life: folk, blues, roots, reggae and the traditional music of the East Coast, but there are always a few new ingredients in the stew and this album is no exception. He weaves these diverse musical threads together with the skill of a fine craftsman, then again he's had the benefit of learning from some of the best, not the least of whom was the late and great Gene MacLellan, a longtime friend and mentor whose country/folk influence can still clearly be heard on this album on a gently rolling track like Before Your Very Eyes.

There isn't a throwaway track on this album, and several of the songs here stand tall among his best, in particular Faces and the Names, the aforementioned Before Your Very Eyes, the title track Nice to wear and Girl With a Guilty Heart. Parsons brought some top talent onside for this album in drummer Reg Ballagh, bass player Wayne Dunsford, keyboard player Aaron Collier, guitarist Mitch Schurman and singer-songwriter Bonnie LeClair who provided background vocals.