Charlie Parr

Charlie Parr plays Green Door Store, Brighton, on 19 May 2026 at 6:30 pm.

In the music of Charlie Parr, there is a sincere conviction and earnest drive to create. The Minnesota-born guitarist, songwriter, and interpreter of traditional music has released 19 albums over two decades and has been known to perform up to 275 shows a year. Parr is a folk troubadour: taking to the road between shows, writing and rewriting songs as he plays. The bluesman poet pulls closely from the sights and sounds around him, his lyrical craftsmanship built by his influences. The sounds from his working-class upbringing—including Folkways legends such as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie—imbue Parr’s music with stylistic echoes of blues and folk icons of decades past. Parr sees himself as a continuer of a folk tradition: “I feel like I stand on a lot of big shoulders,” he said in an interview. “I hope that I’ve brought a little bit of myself to the music.”

With a discography rooted in folk and blues, Parr started recording in Duluth in 2002, where he lives today. Life in the port town on Lake Superior has a way of bleeding into his work the same way his childhood in Austin, Minnesota does. Parr self-released his debut album, Criminals and Sinners, and did the same for his sophomore album 1922 (2002). He signed with Red House Records in 2015, where he recorded Stumpjumper (2015) and Dog (2017). His songs often focus on presence and reflection.

Parr’s work sits within the history of the folk tradition to which he has dedicated his practice. The land and lives around and intersecting with Parr have always influenced him, from the hills and valleys of Hollandale, Minnesota to the Depression-era stories from his father. Parr strives to listen to everything: “I don’t see that I’d ever be capable of creating anything if it weren’t for these inspirations and influences, books and music as well as the weather and random interactions with strangers and animals. So, the well never runs dry as long as my eyes and ears are open,” Parr said in a 2020 interview. Before he was even 10 years old, Parr was rummaging through his father’s record collection—sometimes drawing dinosaurs on the vinyl sleeves—and listening to country, folk, and blues legends, many of whom are staples in the Folkways catalog. When Parr sings and plays his resonator or 12-string, you can hear influences like Mance Lipscomb, Charley Patton, Spider John Koerner, Rev. Gary Davis, and Dock Boggs. This is especially true in his playing, when, after a diagnosis of focal dystonia, Parr turned to artists such as Rev. Gary Davis, Doc Watson, and Bukka White for two-finger picking inspiration. Gifted a 1965 Gibson B-45 12-string by his father, Parr has never had a formal lesson and learned by listening to records and watching musicians he admired.

Parr’s first album with Smithsonian Folkways, Last of the Better Days Ahead (2021), foregrounded his lyrics, with spare production highlighting his guitar playing. Last of the Better Days Ahead reflects on time and memories that have passed while holding a desire to be present. On his 2024 release, Little Sun, Parr gathers songs about music, community, and nature, blending blues and folk traditions with his own writing.