Chris DeLine

Duluth-based country-blues musician Charlie Parr returns to Minneapolis, playing Lee’s Liquor Lounge this Saturday night. The one-off show comes in preparation for his forthcoming tour of the U.K. and Ireland this spring. His efforts overseas will be in support of Roustabout, his most recent album, which will see international release next month. Unleashed in November, the album was recorded on location in “living rooms, garages, barroom basements, and empty storefronts,” a modern-day field recording if there ever was one. A self-taught guitarist, Parr has been deconstructing the genre since he called Minneapolis’s West Bank home in the mid-’80s. A prime example of his interest in finding the gray areas of music can be heard in his collaborative efforts in Devil’s Flying Machine, a band that combines a jazz percussionist and a DJ in creating a hybrid of sound drunk with back-country swagger. For Saturday’s show Parr will be joined by the “Hard drinkin’ fast pickin’ fingerlickin’ bluegrass” sextet the Johnson Family Band. 21+.

[This critics’ pick was originally published by City Pages.]