www.joecunningham.com

Charlie Parr's performances are full of rolling yet driving fingerpicking on acoustic and resophonic guitars.

Touring the United Kingdom is good. Getting a slot on "A Prairie Home Companion" might be better. But having a beer named after you?

That's pretty sweet.

Charlie Parr -- a top-flight acoustic, fingerpicking bluesman who performs Thursday at Kirk Avenue Music Hall -- has done all that.

If you ever make it to Parr's home base, in Duluth, Minn., you can drink his namesake brew, Parr's Porter, at Fitger's Brewhouse, where he plays most Wednesday nights when he's in town. But he's not around there much lately. These days, Parr is on the road supporting his new CD, "Roustabout," billed as a field recording in monophonic sound, captured on reel-to-reel tape in various living rooms, garages, bar basements and empty storefronts.

Parr's songs and performances are full of rolling yet driving fingerpicking on acoustic and resophonic guitars, even Dock Boggs-style banjo. Piedmont and Delta blues underpin much of his work. His playing is solid as a rock, and his singing is down-to-earth and engaging.

Roanoke's Rootstone Jug Band, featuring guitarist/singer Scott Baldwin (formerly of New Roanoke Jug Band) and multitalented Sam Lunsford (Magic Twig Community), opens the show. Parr's old friends from Black Twig Pickers are bound to make onstage appearances, too.

-- Tad Dickens

Who: Charlie Parr, with Rootstone Jug Band and Black Twig Pickers

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Kirk Avenue Music Hall, 22 Kirk Avenue, downtown Roanoke

Cost: $8 at the door

More info: dlpconcerts.com, kirkavenue@gmail.com, charlieparr.com