Charlie Parr was a Minnesota ‘70s kid enthralled by his dad’s record collection, especially LPs by blues guitarists/vocalists Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin’ Hopkins. And for the last fifteen years or so he’s been making his own albums, becoming a celebrated guitarist/vocalist in his own right. He’ll appear at The Parlor Room in Northampton tonight, Friday, at 6:30 p.m.
Parr fell in love with the guitar at age 7 and the obsession has never cooled; he’s self-taught, dedicated to practicing regularly, and now plays instruments that were handmade just for him, including an open neck banjo and a 12-string acoustic. “I just really like to play,” he told an interviewer a couple years back. “If I don’t play shows, I’ll just play guitar in the kitchen at home.”
But Parr has been playing a lot of shows in recent years — and he hates to fly, so he’s been a road warrior, touring frugally in his trusty Kia (with over 200,000 miles under its wheels), even sleeping in it when necessary.
His most recent full-length album is 2015’s “Stumpjumper,” which was recorded in a repurposed tobacco barn on a North Carolina farm with chickens and donkeys and dogs running around, and late last year he released a new EP, “I Ain’t Dead Yet.”
Parr has self-deprecatingly referred to himself as “just another doofus with a guitar,” but his performances are deeply felt and often mesmerizing — like a 2012 clip of him playing “Jubilee” on his prized National resonator guitar, singing intensely over quick hypnotic picking, punctuated by his graceful and gritty slide work. He doesn’t need any extra bells and whistles or other musicians; his voice and guitar pack all the necessary punch.
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Bellingham, WA-based singer-songwriter Robert Sarazin Blake (pictured) just released an epic double album, “Recitative,” and he’ll team up with Ruthless Mike (aka The Mammals’ Michael J. Merenda Jr.) for a story-filled double bill at the cozy Dream Away Lodge in Becket on Friday at 8 p.m.
Popular Amherst funk/soul/jam band Ballads & Softcore Porn plays Northampton’s Iron Horse on Friday at 10 p.m. Their good pals BootyStank, another funky Amherst group, open the show.
Country singer/songwriter/deejay/music maven Laura Cantrell, whose fervent fan base has included Elvis Costello and legendary UK deejay John Peel, returns to the Valley for a show at The Parlor Room on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Local musicians — including Eliana Fiore, The Warblers, Emily Bork, Queen Mary, The Big Why, Bourquensweeno+Steve, Daniel and the frost heaves, and Beverly Ketch and friends — band together to perform Harry Nilsson covers at a benefit show for the local Planned Parenthood chapter at the Rendezvous in Turners Falls on Saturday at 9 p.m.
Ralph White, Long John and Wes Buckley play an in-store show at Mystery Train Records in Amherst on Wednesday at 6 p.m. The show is free, but donations for the musicians are encouraged.
Legendary Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly (at right) put out a record last year with musician Charlie Owen, “Death’s Dateless Night,” on which they perform funeral songs, including famous covers (Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On a Wire”) and some of Kelly’s own originals (“Nukkanya”). Kelly and Owen play the Iron Horse on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The Zombies show earlier this year was canceled due to a snowstorm, but the legendary British band is finally making it back to the Valley to play a special two-set show — playing the entirety of their 1968 masterpiece “Odessey and Oracle,” plus a batch of their biggest hits — at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton on Wednesday at 8 p.m.