Alan Sparhawk

George Alan Sparhawk (born 1969) is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist and vocalist for bands Low and Retribution Gospel Choir.

Early life
Sparhawk was born in Seattle and lived for a few years as a child in Utah. He met Mimi Parker when he was nine after his family moved to Minnesota. Sparhawk began writing his own compositions at an early age.

Career
Low released their first album in 1994. As of 2018, Low has released twelve full-length studio albums. As of 2010, the group is composed of founding members Sparhawk (guitar and vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums and vocals), joined by newer addition Steve Garrington (bass guitar).

The music of Low is characterized by slow tempos and minimalist arrangements. Early descriptions sometimes referred to it as rock subgenre "slowcore". Low's members ultimately disavowed the term.

Parker and Sparhawk's striking vocal harmonies represent perhaps the group's most distinctive element; critic Denise Sullivan writes that their shared vocals are "as chilling as anything Gram and Emmylou ever conspired on—though that's not to say it's country-tinged, just straight from the heart."

Sparhawk is also a member of the blues-roots band Black Eyed Snakes, the blues-dub jam band Los Besos, and the rock band Retribution Gospel Choir. He also occasionally plays solo shows in his hometown. As a solo artist, Sparhawk released his debut album entitled Solo Guitar in August, 2006. He also released a track on a various artists compilation, Songs for the End of the World, as Hollis M. Sparhawk & Her Father, and the track "Be Nice To People With Lice" on the various artists compilation album See You on the Moon!. In 2007 he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon.

Sparhawk has done charity work with the Maasai tribe in Kenya. After a friend of his became a friend of the village of Namuncha, he played a Christmas show in order to raise funds to build a school there, where students had previously been meeting in the shade outside. He calls the experience of visiting the Maasai one of the most spiritual of his life.

In 2012, Sparhawk, along with vocalist and fiddle player Gaelynn Lea, created the group A Murder of Crows. Their first album, Imperfecta, was released in June 2012.

Personal life
He later married Parker and eventually began performing with her in the band Low in Duluth, Minnesota in 1993. Sparhawk has tuned his guitar to Open G since the late eighties, saying, "now it's the only way I know how."

Alan and Mimi live in Duluth, Minnesota with their two children. They are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, about which Sparhawk has said, "our spiritual beliefs encompass our whole life and understanding of who we are and what we do."