Thursday 7/17/14 $5
Many people play roots music, but few modern musicians live those roots like Minnesota’s Charlie Parr. Recording since the earliest days of the 21st century, 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
and Lightnin’ Hopkins, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. With his long scraggly hair, father-time beard, thrift-store workingman’s flannel and jeans, and emphatic, throaty voice, Parr
looks and sounds like he would have fit right into
Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music.