Charlie Parr
Good ol’ Charlie Parr could be a contendeCharlie Parr and Mathew Janczewskir for Minnesota’s Artist of the Year any year. He’s a prolific songwriter and omnipresent performer, always with a new album and grab bag of gigs.
In 2024, Parr’s rustic but rich brand of mostly acoustic blues and folk music reached far outside Minnesota.
He made his latest LP, “Little Sun,” in Portland, Ore., working with renowned producer Tucker Martine (Decemberists, Neko Case) and a jubilant, Band-like backing unit. Rolling Stone hailed it as “a gritty blend of Delta blues and Depression-era roots music soaked in his hardscrabble voice.”
He did his usual wide swath of U.S. touring, upgrading from a Kia Soul to a minivan for sleeping accommodations at age 57. He also went on his longest European trek, landing sold-out shows in London, Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen over two months.
Parr still made a high impact at home. He kept us warm in January again with his beloved Turf Club residency (resuming Jan. 5). He packed First Avenue in May with a joyous release party.
Most memorably and meaningfully, when his longtime mentor Spider John Koerner died in May, Parr voraciously sang, spoke, posted and honored the last of the original Minneapolis West Bank music heroes, who also included Willie Murphy, Dave Ray and Tony “Little Sun” Glover.
“Charlie, to me, is the perfect cross between Spider John’s idiosyncratic individualism seasoned with the mule kick of Dave Ray,” said fellow Minnesota blues picker and musicologist Paul Metsa, who called Parr’s 2024 album “the spiritual descendant” of Koerner’s and Murphy’s influential 1969 album “Running, Jumping, Standing Still.”
As long as Parr is still out there channeling them year after year, those Minnesota music legends who influenced a teenaged Bob Dylan won’t become complete unknowns.
