Charlie Parr - Rooster (2005)

Charlie s 4th independent release (2005). The album contains ten new original tunes, plus two traditional folk songs. It was recorded by Tom Herbers in a Duluth warehouse space using vintage recording equipment in a monophonic format. Rooster features appearances by Mikkel Beckmen on percussion, Molly Maher on slide guitar, Banjo Dave Carrol (Trampled By Turtles) on banjo, Karl Anderson on upright bass, and Christian McShane (if thousands) on cello, guitar and the devil s own ukelin. Lyrically, the songs deal with the usual litany of human miseries and occasional joys: aging, death, loneliness, god, regret and even love. The music draws influence from the rural music of the 20 s: rags, blues, and folk tunes. Parr plays banjo, baritone 12-string, National steel-bodied guitar, and a wood-body resonator guitar built by fellow Duluthians Jakob Larson and his father Daniel.

"Most of his repertoire consists of original songs that sound like whiskey-fueled, late-night laments and complaints, growled and spat out over a guitar in a room in a fleabag hotel during a particularly grim year of the Great Depression. The songs that aren't original are traditionals. "Dead Cat on the Line," however, is not the Tampa Red song, but a sulfuric Parr composition about an old man's fading days. The traditionals here are the well-traveled "Samson and Delilah" and "Wild Bill Jones," but rendered with fierce creative intelligence sufficient to restore life and race blood."