Folk Traveler

Recording since the earliest days of the 21st century, Charlie Parr’s heartfelt and plaintive original folk blues and traditional spirituals don’t strive for authenticity: they are authentic.

It’s the music of a self-taught guitarist and banjo player who grew up without a TV but with his dad’s recordings of America’s musical founding fathers, including Charley Patton, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly.

Parr uses three instruments, not including his own stomping foot. He got an 1890 banjo the first time he heard Dock Boggs. “I don’t do claw hammer, I don’t do Scruggs-style, it’s just a version of me trying to play like Dock Boggs, I guess,” Parr says. He has two Nationals, a 12-string and a Resonator, which became an obsession when Parr saw a picture of Son House playing it.

Parr’s latest album, Hollandale (January 2014), is his twelfth studio release and first that is completely instrumental. He has recorded in warehouses, garages, basements and storefronts, usually on vintage equipment, which gives his work the historic feel of field recordings.

His inspiration is drawn from the alternately fertile and frozen soil of Minnesota. Parr grew up in the Hormel company city of Austin, Minnesota (population 25,000) where most of the world’s favorite tinned meat, Spam, is still manufactured. The combination of industrial meat factory where both of his parents worked proud union jobs, set in a largely rural environment, had a broad impact on Parr.

To many, Parr is considered a regional artist, which is another way of saying he doesn’t like to travel far from his family’s Depression-era roots. “From Cleveland to Seattle and down to San Francisco and back is my area,” he says, though the focus is unquestionably Minnesota and the Northern Plains.

Parr draws sustenance from the thriving and mutually supportive music scene of Duluth: Parr’s 2011 album of traditional songs, Keep Your Hands on the Plow features locals including Charlie’s wife, Emily Parr; old-timey banjo/fiddle band Four Mile Portage; and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of the renowned alternative rock band Low.

Parr averages three or four shows a week, year round. To stay in traveling shape, he eats home-prepared meals such as spicy lentil curry, black bean chili and vegetables that cook on the manifold of his vehicle while he drives. “It’s a good heat source and it’s handy.”

Since he was booked to play Door County Brewing in Baileys Harbor the night of Saturday, Sept. 13, we asked Charlie to supply us with more information about cooking on a car’s manifold. He provided us with details for making a three-course meal on the road.