Allison Hadley Photos
Charlie Parr.
Charlie Parr and the Ghost of Paul Revere mindfully walked the line between folk and Americana Sunday night at the Space Ballroom. It was a quiet night, the room filled with 50 or so laid-back but enthusiastic people, milling about and wandering the newly clean walls of the Hamden spot; the room continues to be intimate, but the production values higher.
Before the show Parr sat by the merch table, chatting with a variety of fans, all of whom seemed to want to be friends with him. He amicably regaled them with the story of his broken shoulder (skateboarding accident, commemorated with a sticker that proclaimed “never too late to mend”). Then, with nary a pause, he got up and proceeded directly on stage.
With just a resonator guitar for aid, the Duluth, Minn.-based Parr started off his set with a song about Casey Jones and set the stage for what felt like a lost B‑side to a song on Harry Smith’s folk anthology, as Parr wove very old songs into his own writing. The audience closed in around him, leaving a respectful space in the center stage as if it projected a few more feet into the room; they gave the songs space to breathe.
Parr later described his preferred performance style as “like a song circle where one person holds on to the guitar — we’re all music fans here.” He spoke in a friendly way with the audience, mentioning a few times how much he enjoyed the space. He mentioned his fondness for the area stemming from past shows at Cafe Nine, where, incidentally, one of his favorite bands (Acid Mothers Temple) recorded a live album. He mused on the price of the titanium screws that held his shoulder together, and the sleeping accommodations of highway rest stops.
“I’m a lifelong learner,” Parr said, when asked about how he incorporates new and old songs into his repertoire. In his own music he seeks to avoid imitation and instead expand beyond the usual definitions of the genre.
“I’m a big proponent of the folk process that Pete Seeger always talked about,” he said. “You keep adding layers to it and you’re never done.” He talked about musicians he knows who are moving beyond straight-ahead traditional music doing just that. “Two friends of mine from the Black Twig Pickers, including Nathan Bowles, his most recent solo album is his best one. He’s that banjo player that blurs the lines between traditional banjo playing and experimental music and American primitive style.” (Bowles is coming to the State House this weekend.) Parr’s philosophy showed during his set particularly with his cover of “C.C. Rider,” a very old blues that was most recently made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show — who, incidentally, just toured with the Ghost of Paul Revere, the second act of the evening.
Ghost of Paul Revere.
After the singularity of Parr — especially after his final, a cappella rendition of “Ain’t No Grave” — the Portland, Me.-based Ghost of Paul Revere seemed to almost overstuff the stage. The four-piece band of Max Davis on banjo and vocals, Sean McCarthy on bass and vocals, Griffin Sherry on guitar and vocals, and Ben Cosgrove on accordion and vocals deployed luscious four-part harmonies that seemed to fill all the gaps Parr could only let us imagine. The musicians started their set with a rousing “Ballad of the 20th Maine,” a Civil War song from the perspective of a Maine regiment. The choice here immediately showed the musicians’ more Americana inclinations, as they placed themselves within the American mythological landscape of songs that don’t quite come from the tradition but cannot escape it in turn. Americana went well with the room, as the 50-odd people in the audience pressed closer, beflanneled and wearing knit caps in the traditional outfit of the region. The sound was bright as a lonely highway sign, and the vocals lush as a road that stretches out in front of you, a great American road trip of sounds.
It matched the Space perfectly.
