Charlie Parr’s Jubilee

Though Charlie Parr named his last album “Jubilee,” probably for the first cut on it, there is no mistaking that he has found his own joy and jubilee in a life spent pursuing music.
Parr grew up in a family that appreciated music far more than other media. “My dad was heavy into old folk music and blues and the old country music. We had a big giant Magnavox record player. It played all the time. There was a little black and white TV that was in the kitchen. He would turn on the news while we were eating. He’d turn it off again, because he’d get all upset. I was a little kid during ‘72, ‘75 and Vietnam. I remember him just railing about that. Then, he’d go in and put on a record.”

Music became solace and joy for the elder Parr and for young Charlie.

But most of that music was ancient, even then. “The newest thing that I heard was Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton,” Parr recalled. “Music went all the way back to Woodie Guthrie and Leadbelly and Mancee Lipscomb. Old records. The Harry Smith Anthology and all those great Smithsonian Folkways LPs that they used to put out in big cardboard sleeves. I got to hear all of that stuff.”

But Parr’s own story wasn’t that far removed from some of those Woodie Guthrie or Leadbelly tunes. “I grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota, Austin, where there is just a Hormel factory down there, a meatpacking plant. My folks worked there. My dad came up from farming in Iowa and Kansas and Illinois. They were tenant farmers so they did land rentals. He was all over the place during the Depression. He took off and rode freight trains. He was trying to get down to Texas to get work and ended up on the road for a long time. He got into the Piedmont a few times in his travels. I think that’s where he picked up listening to some of that stuff.”

With all of that music seeping into his pores, it was no big leap for Parr to pick up guitar at a young age. He was eight and taught himself how to pick, through trial and error.

“I was trying to learn to play the banjo and never quite got there. I play banjo in the parlor style. It took me 20 years to figure out how to do that!”

With the guitar came learning a lot of old music, but soon Parr was writing a song or two of his own. He began performing in Minneapolis in 1988, doing the club and coffeehouse circuit.

He learned a lot from Minnesota roots artists Dave Ray and Spider John Koerner, who brought black blues to a white audience.

Parr’s own work has that old-timey feel as if Woodie or Uncle Dave Macon were still walking among us.

He released his first CD, “Criminals & Sinners,” in 2001. Three more followed closely behind, with “Julibee” released last year.

He’s toured all over the country, appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, and been overseas. “Once or twice a year, I end up in the UK or Ireland. I’ve toured there seven times, I think, I’ve got two releases on an English record label and one coming out on an Irish record label now. A lot the music fans over there apparently seem to know more about America folk music than most American folks do.”

He has also recorded a song for an American folk anthology on a French label.

You can catch an evening of song, story, and humor with Charlie Parr and his deep roots music at the HoDo on Thursday, June 12. He’ll also be appearing at Log Jam June 20 and at Forty Watt Bulb’s Big Old Outdoor Show in Santiago, Minn. on June 14.

If You Go

What: Charlie Parr
Where: Hotel Donaldson, Fargo
When: Thursday June 12, 8:30 pm
Cover: $3
Info: (701) 478-1000