Charlie Parr

with Paper Wings

INFORMATION | TICKETS

Charlie Parr

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 in the truest sense: taking to the road between shows, writing and rewriting songs as he plays, fueled by a belief that music is eternal and cannot be claimed or adequately explained. 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 merely 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 simultaneously transcendental in nature and grounded in roots music, Charlie Parr is the humble master of the 21st century folk tradition. 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). With growing popularity abroad, Parr signed with Red House Records in 2015, where he recorded break-out albums Stumpjumper (2015) and Dog (2017). Parr’s music has an overwhelming sense of being present and mindful, and his sound is timeless.

Parr’s mastery of his craft is only more apparent when contextualized within the history of folk tradition of which Parr 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, Spinder 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 greats like Davis, Doc Watson, and Booker 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 to listening records and watching musicians he admired.

Parr’s first album with Smithsonian Folkways, Last of the Better Days Ahead (2021), foregrounded his lyrical craftsmanship and sophisticated bluesman confidence, with spare production highlighting Parr’s mastery of guitar and elevating his poetry. Last of the Better Days Ahead is a portrait of how Parr saw the world in that moment, reflecting on time and memories that have past while holding an enduring desire to be present. In his 2024 release, Little Sun, Parr weaves together stories celebrating music, community, and communing with nature. Putting forth an ambitious and raw album that exemplifies the best of Parr's sound: a blend of the blues and folk traditions he continues to carry with him and the steadfast originality of a poet.

Paper Wings

Long-time friends and collaborators Emily Mann and Wila Frank, known together as Paper Wings, dream up warm, pastoral folk songs suited to wandering through a forest or field, quiet contemplation, and long winding journeys. Furnished with delicate banjo and spellbinding harmonies so close you often can’t tell their voices apart, Frank & Mann deliver dynamic performances emboldened by the strength of their sincere songwriting. The duo have an uncommon ability to tastefully reference nostalgic sounds of American folk music while maintaining their own compelling style of artful and unpretentious lyricism. The strength and solitude one finds in the wilderness is a theme throughout their writing, and they lovingly transport listeners to open landscapes in which to find comfort and ask the questions which we all have in common.

With roots in California and Oregon respectively, Mann & Frank met as fellow fiddle players attending music camps and festivals growing up. As teenagers, they developed their instrumental prowess by studying and performing with folk legends such as Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Tim O’Brien, Steve Earle, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sarah Jarosz among others. It was during this time that they began writing and touring together, eventually making their way to Nashville where they recorded their debut album Paper Wings in 2017 and sophomore album Clementine in 2019. After garnering streaming success with their heartfelt track “Troubled Soul”, the duo hit the road opening for Avi Kaplan’s ‘I’ll Get By’ tour.

During the lockdowns of 2020, Frank & Mann began working on a third album. Partway through, they placed the project on hold to focus on other projects. The last song they had released before parting ways was single “Marigold,” a potent balm for the heart, telling of new beginnings and second chances. Perhaps this song was a prophecy of sorts, for in 2023 Frank & Mann reunited to finish the album, much to the delight of their fans. Over the course of four days, the duo captured their collection of songs in an intimate private studio outside of Nashville. This work of 12 tracks is titled Listen to the World Spin and came out March 15, 2024.

On Listen to the World Spin, the duo’s songwriting flourishes in new ways while maintaining their intuitive sparseness and eloquence. Throughout the album, they invite us to take a step back to look at our lives as a landscape from above. Like co-passengers on a long voyage, the two old friends explore the textures of shifting relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with the world around us. A profound sense of solitude and yearning resonates throughout the album. On the title track, they implore “I feel so small, show me how to burn bright” and “I feel so alone, show me how to hold on”. This theme of seeking is echoed in album highlight “Funny Little World” with a series of questions: “What’s up with the pain in the world? Am I gonna be alright? Will I survive? What have I got myself into?”

In lieu of answers to their questions, Frank and Mann simply remind us throughout the album that we are not alone in our search for meaning and certainty. The journey is the destination in this collection of songs, along with the friendship and empathy found along the way. “These songs brought us back together, tugging at our hearts until we made them into something,” says Frank. “We needed these songs to guide and comfort us through the last few years, and we hope they’ll do the same for others.”