For decades, Austin, Minnesota-born songwriter/guitarist Charlie Parr has created a wanderer sound, fresh yet familiar, spinning out so many albums you could press play at midnight and still be listening the day after without hearing them all. And while he reels off smokin’ travelin’ blues type guitar pickin’ like a heart beats, the secrets hidden in the creases of his music echo those hidden in the life-lived lines on his face. From exploring the hidden philosophy of an old hobo to revealing the unvarnished fallout of the upselling of the American Dream, Parr’s songs devastate with a minimum of words.

The image of the country blues troubadour as sometimes a wise observer, sometimes a joker laughing at himself are well-travelled tropes; Parr’s transparency about his struggles with depression and dark thoughts runs parallel to those tropes without running into them. Instead, listeners get a few simple words tucked among frantic banjo or guitar notes, sketching a high school sweetheart and her laid off beau 20 years down the road as life steers their course a few ticks of the clock, a few Tuesday afternoons at a time, while the old ladies and bums come into the liquor store to buy their cheap wine, and all the labels are facing out.

— Mary-Lynn Wardle