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Who understands the blues better than a social worker? But how many social workers can fingerpick the Delta and Piedmont styles while singing in an authentic voice about life’s tragedies and oddities?

Charlie Parr has all that down, as he showed a crowded house of about 80 people on Thursday night at Kirk Avenue Music Hall. With harmonica player Dave Hundreiser and percussionist Lane Prekker flanking him, he mumbled and growled his way through about an hour of originals and classic country-blues numbers.

Late in the evening, after The Black Twig Pickers joined Parr’s band onstage, they kicked into “Up Jumped the Devil,” which Parr described as “one of the many songs Robert Johnson wrote about his intimate relationship with the Devil.” But by the time the night was over, I wondered if Parr’s right thumb hadn’t made a deal with ol’ Scratch.

That digit was relentless, never dropping time as Parr alternated it among bass strings, while his fingers plucked and slashed out chord- and melody-fragments on a variety of six- and twelve-string resonator guitars, even a banjo. His sidemen flavored the proceedings nicely.

But let’s get back to the original songs. Parr, whose online bio says he has a philosophy degree and became an outreach worker for the homeless, has a nice feel for lyrics.

In “Dead Cat on the Line,” a rolling Piedmont blues, he sang of loneliness in the face of upheaval: “I worked all my life/I couldn’t save a dime/Now I’ll just hang here/Dead cat on the line/I remember how it was/Strike of ’62 … I told ‘em how it was/When they walked off the line/I’ve got a room above the bar/Dead cat on the line”

In “Cheap Wine,” he assumed the character of a bitter, jaded store owner, surrounded by bums, hustlers and old ladies who buy cheap wine: “Well they ain’t no better than these bums that come in here and buy cheap wine.” But this shopkeep might be worse than any of the others, having framed a boy under mysterious circumstances.

“Anyway, they killed him, not me. I’ve got a business here to run/I’ve got property to keep/And he got nothin.’”

His voice made me think of Richard Thompson, had Thompson been more of a country-blues head. And his playing, solid as a rock and tasty, but nowhere near clean as a museum piece. His is authentic modern blues, and at the end, with the Black Twigs onstage, it was a jugband cacophony — with two, yes, two, washboards in full effect.

Nathan Bowles’ washboard parts were grooved in well with Prekker’s. Fiddler Mike Gangloff (aka federal courts reporter at The Roanoke Times) was a sawing beast, and Isak Howell (aka former Roanoke Times guy, now a lawyer) brought strong flatpicking to the proceedings. The Black Twigs’ part of the set was relatively short, but it was clear that their longstanding friendship with Parr extended to the stage.

Nary a jug was onstage at that point, though. Rootstone had already taken care of that end of things in its opening set.

Onetime New Roanoke Jug Band leader Scott Baldwin has joined forces with several members of the Magic Twig Community — Sam Lunsford, John Thompson and Sean Poff — and My Radio bassist Jeff Hofmann. Together, they swing a bunch some 1920s-era primitive vibes, and sound great doing it.

Poff was often on the washboard, and blew the jug plenty. Lunsford played guitar, banjo, harmonica, even fiddle — he said he’s just now learning the instrument. Baldwin was a rock on a resonator guitar, blowing a bit of jug and wailing on a kazoo stuck into a microphone stand’s clip. Hofmann occasionally bowed his upright bass, getting tuba sounds. Thompson picked Delta licks aplenty.

Baldwin sang old tunes by the likes of Caldwell “Mississippi” Bracey and the Memphis Jug Band. The band was also sharp on originals, such as “Blues Alone,” which Baldwin told the crowd he co-wrote with his onetime New Roanoke Jug Band partner, Jay Griffin.

Rootstone was substance over flash, with nasally, comfortable vocals from Baldwin, and true musicianship from his sidemen.

It was a good night of old-school primitive, and the crowd didn’t leave till Parr and his cohorts finished their encore.