Show Notes
New bestie Gina Chavez speaks about her journey in music, her deep love for connecting with people, and the influence of her mixed cultural background on Basic Folk. Her parents are of Mexican and Swiss-German descent. Her father, although second generation Mexican-American, was not raised with Spanish language or any Mexican culture. Gina discusses growing up in Austin, Texas, and the role music – or the absence of it – played in her household. She talks about being a choir kid in the '90s before it was cool, about discovering her Latin roots later in life, and how singing in Spanish feels spiritually significant to her.
Gina also shares her experiences studying abroad in Argentina, running a college fund for girls in El Salvador, and the moment she unlocked her true singing voice in the studio. We hear about how she met her wife, Jodi Granado, at the Catholic Student Center at the University of Texas. Then, we get into her complex relationship with Texas, her Catholic upbringing, her advocacy work, and the joy of performing on Olivia Travel cruises. Throughout the interview, Gina emphasizes the importance of being true to oneself and learning to embrace and express all parts of her identity.
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It's Lizzie No speaking to you from Dublin, Ireland, where I recently moved! It's fall here which makes my mind wander back to my home state of origin, New Jersey, where leaves are undoubtedly changing and cider donuts are being consumed. I hope you're enjoying autumn wherever you are. This summer I said goodbye to Nashville, Tennessee, where I had been living for the past three years. I also worked on a bunch of projects, rehomed my beloved foster dog Dino, and prepared myself logistically to move to a new country. I don't think it was possible to prepare myself emotionally, but the paperwork is done, thank god. I'm mentioning all of this from my desk in Dublin because it's hitting me how quickly a transition period can become a major chapter of your life, how quickly a temporary living situation can become home, and how all of a sudden things that felt permanent have become memories. This leads me to my interview with Minnesota folk singer Charlie Parr, whose new album, Rooming House, comes out on Smithsonian Folkways on October 16. Rooming House is an emotionally impactful musical story in seven acts. Like a lot of Charlie Parr's music, this album feels like a play where the stakes feel so real that you can't help but walk away more empathetic for having experienced it. The setting is a rooming house, and the characters are the folks from young to old who have been thrown together by circumstance. It's the type of brilliantly observed story-album that we are lucky enough to get when imaginative artists from working class backgrounds have the courage to tell stories. In addition to being a prolific songwriter, Charlie Parr is a fabulous guitar player and student of the blues, so our conversation covers some of his musical backstory in addition to a discussion of the album. On a personal note, in 2020 I made an exhaustive cross-genre list of the songs from the decade of the 2010s which had been most important to me, and Charlie Parr's "Cheap Wine" came in at #1. His songs have accompanied me through a lot of life changes, so today is a big day for me, and a big day for Basic Folk. Before I let you listen to my conversation with this contemporary heavyweight of folk music, I want to read you a passage from Charlie's written accompaniment to Rooming House: Follow Basic Folk on social media: https://basicfolk.bio.link/ Sign up for Basic Folk's newsletter: https://bit.ly/basicfolknews Help produce Basic Folk by contributing: https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Interested in sponsoring us? Contact BGS: https://bit.ly/sponsorBGSpods
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