Charlie Parr at Higher Ground

About

All Ages

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Beloved Minnesota songwriting troubadour Charlie Parr doesn’t have dental insurance, like so many in the United States. So when he needed dental work, he had to figure out how to respond to a hefty bill. “You know, I’ve got a few guitars and a big record collection, so I started selling stuff off to be able to pay off this dental bill because I had to get them fixed.” This experience inspired him to start writing the song cycle and as-yet-unfinished novella that became Rooming House, a conceptual folk opera that chronicles the lives of Upper Midwesterners through his quietly raucous, deeply rooted, and empathetic blues sound.

When Parr first moved to Minneapolis from Austin in the 1980s, he lived in rooming houses. “I loved them so much. I really did. It was just a really interesting, wonderful bunch of people that I got to know. It felt like this strange family. You had a cross-section of everybody in these houses.” Parr’s lyrics ensure that you can picture these people and spaces—the shared kitchens, the makeshift family, the efforts to keep warm. The first single “Rooming House” sets the scene, with imagery and detail that one can clearly picture.

These are indelible songs of lost memories and hardship, but also of acts of empathy and helping neighbors make do; of taking each other in. “The characters in the songs all along have been loosely based on composites of people I’ve met,” says the songwriter. “I got to think about those folks. I don’t remember anybody ever not using the free clinic, which doesn’t exist anymore,” he remembers. He writes in a poem included as liner notes, “These folks here, in this record, have no idea what’s wrong. Or how to help. I know people who can’t afford to see a doctor. I’ve heard them talking about ‘toughing it out,’ or seeking advice about home remedies that will never work. I have a friend who knows someone who does his own dental work.”

For instance, the character John, an orphan whose story Parr builds throughout Rooming House, tries home remedies in the album’s second single, “(what’s so funny about) Universal Healthcare?” When they don’t work, decides to get caught robbing a bank (“Bank Robber”), figuring there are doctors in jail. He hands the teller a note that reads, “I’m sick and I’m tired and I only want some peace.” In the lush and light “Duluth 2026,” the cops take him back to the rooming house and charges aren’t pressed.

Living in a rooming house on Minneapolis’ West Bank, Parr would see local legends Dave Ray, “Spider” John Koerner, or Willie Murphy any night of the week. He soaked up an earthy, blues-driven sound. He plays a modified Gretsch twelve-string guitar that belonged to Koerner (tuned to either open C or standard) as well as a nine-string Mule resonator on two songs (tuned to open D). Of the resonator, he says, “It gives you this Big Joe Williams kind of jangly, weird, slightly off-kilter vibe.”