Charlie Parr - Dog (2017)

Charlie Parr is a singular songwriter who has built a dedicated, grassroots following for his haunting, topical songs and virtuosic picking, not to mention the fact that he's on the road 300 days a year. Based in Duluth, MN, Parr's inspiration is drawn from the alternately fertile and frozen soil of Minnesota; his songs exude a Midwestern sensibility and humility. The combination of growing up with both of his parents working proud union jobs in an industrial meat factory and his largely rural environment had a broad impact on Parr's writing. His second full album for Red House, Dog, is "about folks trying to get along when the atmosphere around them makes it difficult," Parr says, who was going through hard time in his life when the album was being recorded. He writes first person narratives as a "HoBo," a hoarder who's about to get evicted ("Pleasant Valley"), and a man who'd like to be appreciated before his funeral, not after ("I Ain't Dead Yet"). Sometimes darkly funny, sometimes just plain dark, it's a brilliant, rawly emotional album that's moving as all hell.