Charlie Parr


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    Charlie Parr grew up in Austin, Minnesota, in a house filled with the music that would inform his style. His late father loved the music found on collections like the field recordings by Alan Lomax released on the Folkways / Smithsonian label and Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. The elder Parr’s first-hand accounts of growing up during the Depression, riding the freight trains and traveling to places like the Piedmont region (a North Carolina country blues mecca), made the music all the more visceral to Charlie. While his peers were immersed in what is now called “classic rock,” Charlie was soaking up the music of Furry Lewis, Rev. Gary Davis and Mance Lipscomb. As both his parents were union workers at Austin’s Hormel plant – picket line fixtures during bitter labor strikes in the mid-1980s – Charlie himself got a first-hand view of what those old songs were talking about.

    Parr picked up the guitar around age eight, however, music lessons never held his interest. He’s one of those self-taught guys who inevitably brings his own twists to music. He dropped out of high school as a freshman, eventually earning his GED after moving to Minneapolis. Parr’s performing career began in 1988, playing in Twin Cities coffeehouses and clubs where he also spent a lot of time listening to (and learning from) resident greats like Dave Ray and “Spider” John Koerner.

    Over the next decade-plus, Parr continued to hone his style and took up songwriting in earnest. Parr also earned a degree in philosophy and became an outreach worker for the homeless, working for the Salvation Army in Minneapolis. His experiences in social services can be heard in his songs, the way any songwriter is impacted by their life experiences. Don’t, however, look for any one person’s story in Parr’s songs. Like his music, Charlie’s work helping people in tough spots has been nothing short of a calling (and it ain’t no research project). Dignity, and the struggle to keep it, are central themes in Parr’s songs, and he’s not the kind of guy to trade it on the cheap.