Charlie Parr Is a Blues Troubadour Who Sleeps in His Minivan. He’s Never Been Happier
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It’s a warm spring day in Asheville, North Carolina, and Charlie Parr is sitting on the back stairwell of Eulogy, a trendy music venue in the South Slope neighborhood. Later that evening, the singer-songwriter will play to a packed crowd. But, for now, Parr is soaking in every last ray of sunshine before he has to return to his native Minnesota, where winter has yet to fully let go.
“For a while, I think I was feeling intimidated by a lot of stuff,” Parr tells Rolling Stone. “Aging is intimidating. The music industry’s very intimidating. New love life. And [my kids] getting older — everything just piles up.”
Parr is set to turn 57 a few weeks after this interview. With this latest circle around the sun, the musician — sporting a flannel shirt, scruffy beard, and thin-framed spectacles — has a lot to be thankful for, including the release of his latest album, Little Sun, which hit the streets the day after the Eulogy gig in March.
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Recorded in Portland, Oregon, Little Sun — his 18th studio album since his 2002 debut — was produced by Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists).
“We were just sitting around, trying different things, playing the songs a bunch of different ways, which I’d never gotten to do in a studio before,” Parr says of the laid-back session, which birthed songs like the rollicking “Boombox.”
Little Sun is signature Charlie Parr, a gritty blend of Delta blues and Depression-era roots music soaked in his hardscrabble voice. It’s a sacred realm of folk wisdom and sorrowful vulnerability, reserved for the likes of Willis Alan Ramsey, John Hartford, or even Link Wray.
During the recording sessions, one of the worst snowstorms that Portland has ever seen overtook the city. And yet the weather was rather poignant, a symbolic ode to Parr’s meditative tone — swirling sounds and existential thoughts like driving a backcountry road in a haze of undulating snowflakes, bright headlights, and enveloping darkness.
But Parr isn’t interested in talking about the album, at least not right out of the gate. He’d prefer to chat about his revelations while rereading Dave Van Ronk’s seminal memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street.
“I liked that he was a purist,” Parr says “He was more about sacrificing himself for the art than going the [Bob] Dylan route.”
This is the fourth time Parr has read The Mayor of MacDougal Street, which a fan handed him after a show in Massachusetts. Even though Parr was well-versed in its message of artistic integrity and taking the long road in life in the name of quality over quantity, he was curious if anything new would stick to his heart and soul.
“[Van Ronk] says, We’re not making money out here. We’re not playing these giant places. People aren’t running up to you and saying how much it means,” Parr says of his role as a troubadour. “But you’re doing it. You get to play music. You get to be part of this thing that’s much larger than yourself — it means everything.”
Parr is also moseying down well-worn paths of his musical past. In his solo crisscrossing of America while on tour, he’s been exploring the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ornette Coleman as he pilots his trusty minivan. He’s also revisiting his punk rock roots, with the Minutemen’s 1984 album Double Nickels on the Dime, Parr’s “favorite record of all time,” in constant rotation. And there’s the 1991 John Cage number “4’33,” in which the composer records and presents four and a half minutes of pure silence.
“Cage had this philosophy that everything is music — all sound is music,” Parr says. “The more I think about it, the more I think he’s absolutely right. When I’m driving, I’ll turn off the radio and immerse myself in the sound of the van and the cars going by.”
By the time you hit this depth of conversation, you start to understand just who Parr really is. He’s a human sponge for knowledge and experience, “both awkwardly introverted and excited to meet people,” he says.
A lifelong Minnesotan with a Midwestern accent, Parr relocated from the rural southern part of the state to the remote desolation of Duluth along the shores of Lake Superior in the 1990s. Bouncing between a gamut of blue-collar jobs, he got married and had two kids in Duluth. A novice guitarist inspired by Van Ronk, Charlie Patton, Reverend Gary Davis, and Spider John Koerner, he started to play open mic nights and basement jam sessions.
Eventually, Parr booked paid gigs around the Midwest when he wasn’t helping the Duluth homeless as an outreach coordinator. By the time his debut album, 1922, emerged in 2002, Parr was making enough money to quit his job, or at least enough to justify the pursuit of a long-held dream.
“In the summer, I’d take the whole [family], stuff them in the van and make up tours along the way,” Parr says. “I’d look at an atlas and call people and ask if I could play at their dumb pizza place.”
A frugal person by nature, Parr figured he could pursue music full-time and still support a family, so long as he only ate meals provided by the venues and slept in his car at rest areas to curb spending (methods he still practices today).
“I haven’t had a job in 22 years,” Parr grins. “My wife was super supportive. She said, ‘You be a stay-at-home dad and gig at night. Just get home before I have to go work,’ which was probably the death nail of our marriage, because I did it.”
Somewhere down the line, Parr was handed divorce papers. He and his ex-wife are still good friends and also proud parents, with their youngest soon to graduate high school. The family home was recently sold because of the hot real-estate market. Parr also “met a woman in St. Paul and moved in with her,” he says, and is focusing on his mental health.
Between his introverted nature and existential dread, Parr’s struggled with depression as far back as he can remember: He says he attempted suicide three times.
“When I was 13 years old and tried to kill myself, a lot of people disappeared. My parents were left there with me wondering, ‘What the hell do we do?’” Parr says. “Then, when I was in my 40s and it came back, a lot of people disappeared again.”
Parr chalks it up to a chemical imbalance. Once embarrassed to speak about his depression and ask for help, Parr has sought out therapy. He now talks openly and candidly about his feelings, honest sentiments previously revealed only in his songs.
“I’m not in that space anymore. I don’t feel that way now,” Parr says. “I don’t feel suicidal, but I have to do a lot of work to make sure I’m okay.”
He’s also making conscious decisions to seek happiness through gratitude exercises like scribbling down things he’s thankful for.
“I’m a big fanatic about gratitude,” Parr says. “Get up each morning and I make my list — I’m awake, I’m alive, here’s money in my pocket to go get coffee — it’s just one thing after another.”
Tilting his head upward, Parr gazes toward the Blue Ridge Mountains cradling Asheville. The sunshine feels mighty fine on this lazy afternoon. The Eulogy doors will open in the coming hours, faces from around the region quickly filling the dance hall. Parr is far from home, but he’s never felt closer to the person he’s always known he was, or hoped to be.
“I have self-confidence I didn’t have before. I feel better about myself as a musician,” Parr says. “I feel better about myself as a father, as a friend. I feel comfortable in my skin, my clothing, my age. I present myself better because I feel better. I found my voice.”
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