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Charlie Parr takes Waterhole stage on Election Night

SARANAC LAKE?- Charlie Parr will perform on Election Night at The Waterhole at 8 p.m. Tuesday while touring for his latest album, “Stumpjumper.”

Long a part of the Duluth, Minnesota music scene (Alan Sparhawk and Low, Trampled by Turtles), Charlie’s inspiration is drawn from the alternately fertile and frozen soil of Minnesota; his songs exude a Midwestern sensibility and humility.

He grew up in the Hormel meatpacking city of Austin, Minnesota (population 25,000) where most of the world’s favorite tinned meat, Spam, is still manufactured. (He won’t eat hot dogs to this day.) The combination of growing up with both of his parents working union jobs in an industrial meat factory and his largely rural environment had a broad impact on Parr.

Produced by Phil Cook in rural North Carolina, “Stumpjumper” harnesses the excitement of Parr’s live show, highlighting his blistering finger-picking, foot-stomping blues and finely crafted songs like “Over the Red Cedar,” “Falcon” and “Remember Me If I Forget.”

His songs are populated with a list of characters you wouldn’t ordinarily meet: old ladies going to buy “the cheap wine” (“they ain’t no better than the bums”), a woman with “an uncontrollable temper,” and people getting left out of getting the American Dream.

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