Photo credit Linda Koutsky
Charlie is completely self-taught on guitar and various other folk instruments. He grew up in New York and at the age of 13 started his guitar “lessons” when he purchased a how-to book in a drugstore. After college, he was mentored by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays (“If I had a Hammer”) and Don McLean, who taught him that being a songwriter and musician was not only rewarding, but absolutely possible.
He met Garrison Keillor in 1974 and performed on “A Prairie Home Companion” for nine years. Other rewarding and exciting experiences followed: Centennial Troubadour for Minnesota State Parks; the Singing Ranger for the National Park Service; and appearances on “Good Morning America,” “All Things Considered,” and “As It Happens,” to say nothing of awards ranging from a Bush Fellowship to the New York Film and Television Festival.
More About the Artist
Charlie has been honored with multiple grants and awards, including a Bush Artist Fellowship and the New York Film and Television Festival Gold Award. He has been named a “Humanities Scholar” by the Minnesota Humanities Commission. He is also an adjunct professor of Language Arts at Hamline University in Saint Paul, teaching a songwriting course. He has been a writer for the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and for All Things Considered and Options in Education, both on National Public Radio.
Program Offerings
Workshops
Twang! Learn to Play the Jaw Harp!
An excellent companion piece to the Woody Guthrie performance! Small, cheap and easily carried, the jaw harp, also known as the “Jew’s Harp,” or, by its ancient name, the “trump,” has been played for centuries and is known throughout the world. Some cultures use the jaw harp to dance, others to entertain, still others in courtship and dating! Through the application of three simple steps, up to 25 students become proficient in 45 minutes and will also learn two songs to entertain their family and friends. The presentation ends with an informal group concert that never fails to gain an audience!
Note: Jaw harps are required and are available for a nominal fee.
Residencies
Songwriting
Once the topic of the class songwriting activity is chosen, Charlie works with every student to write the new song as a group. Charlie has written over 900 songs with children as part of the COMPAS residency program. Once the topic for the class songwriting activity is chosen, Charlie works with every student to write the new song as a group. When the song is finished (usually in 2-3 class visits) Charlie then helps the class arrange and perform the song on the last day of the residency. Everyone can contribute a word or phrase, and they can bring in instruments to play along on the song from home. Every kind of participation that enhances the song is welcome. It is truly amazing and wonderful to see the song grow and take shape, and to see each and every student having a part in it. What makes Charlie’s approach so special is that he understands what each child is going through as they work hard for just the right word or phrase. He celebrates their creative efforts, and captures exactly what they want to say and project in the writing and performance of their new work.
Lasting memories are created for each student after just a week with Charlie. He has received many messages from former students (who are now adults) thanking him for his time with them. Many, if not all of these messages include the fact that these former students can still remember and sing the lyrics to the song they wrote even after 25 or more years.
What My Eyes Have Seen
“What My Eyes Have Seen” includes the creation of a totally original song (words & music) and the creation of individual works of art. Performer / compose Charlie Maguire has worked with seniors, adult day care, and adult memory loss centers since 1976. The Wilder Foundation, Courage Center, and innumerable nursing home and assisted living situations throughout Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois have counted on Charlie’s songs and stories – with guitar, jaw harp and spoons – to bring joy, enrichment and comfort to their clients.
Charlie says, “In almost 30 years of writing songs and ballads with elders, I have seen the healing power of the lyric, and the exercise of singing the song work miracles for elders who are having trouble remembering who they were and where they are now. Writing the song, coming up with the lyrics regenerates the memory, and singing the song puts those memories in context and builds inner strength, self-confidence, and restores the feeling of well-being, and with the connections to the greater world, and interest in living again. On a good day, it’s like medicine.”
Photo credit: Linda Koutsky
Note: Materials and mileage costs may also apply.
Performances
The U.S. Semiquincentennial: Songs of America’s Hometowns
As the United States marks its 250th Anniversary (semiquincentennial) as a nation in 2026, a new
program by Charlie Maguire is here! The first Singing Ranger in the National Park Service and Outreach Artist for the Smithsonan’s Traveling Exhibition Service, Charlie brings a semiquincentennial collection of his songs with emphasis on the lives of everyday people in the rural United States: farmers, wilderness preservers, small business owners — those who put down deep roots in an Americana then grew and prospered.
The program is also leavened by the American Songbag of working women and men: “Red River
Valley,” “City of New Orleans,” “Roll on Columbia,” best sung all together in remembrance of a thousand campfires along a trail, a railroad track, or by the side of the road. Performed on guitar, harmonica, jawharp, spoons, and the frying pan — the essence of the American Spirit spills out in this collection of original and traditional songs by a master folksinger and recording artist.
Farm to Table: A Look Back at Life on a Small Family Farm in Story and Song
Long a favorite with the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service, folksinger and songwriter Charlie Maguire’s Farm to Table is a richly entertaining journey into the everyday life of small family farms. Drawing from his own childhood on a 500-acre farm in western New York during the 1950s and ’60s, Maguire weaves humorous tales of blacksmith shops, hired hands, Farmall and John Deere tractors, and the pigs, chickens, and cows that shaped his early years.
The program features original songs such as “Getting in the Cows,” “Baling Hay,” “Winter on the Farm,” and the widely sung “Fall Is Here.” Together, the stories and songs capture both the hardships and the joys of life on a working farm, offering audiences an authentic glimpse into an American way of life that shaped the roots of Maguire’s musical career.
Farm to Table blends history, humor, and music into a performance that is at once casual, informative, and deeply engaging. Audience reactions from recent tours call Maguire’s performances “fantastic,” “very relatable,” and “one of the best Legacy programs I’ve seen.”
As a longtime COMPAS teaching artist, Minnesota State Parks Troubadour, and National Park Service Singing Ranger, Charlie Maguire brings a lifetime of experience and authenticity to every performance. Whether you come for the music, the stories, or the laughter, Farm to Table is a program that will resonate across generations.
Running time: 60–75 minutes
Audience: All ages, unlimited size
Pastures of Plenty: Woody Guthrie’s Life & Times
Credit: Morgan Library-Linda Koutsky
Called “a national possession like Yellowstone or Yosemite” Woody Guthrie was a songwriter, poet, visual artist, Veteran, author, adventurer, and raconteur. His songs, including “This Land is Your Land”, “Hard Traveling”, “Do Re Me” and “Roll on Columbia” completely captured in simple simple verse and melody not only his love of America, but also his deep and enduring compassion for it’s people. In turn, Americans and millions around the world have sung his songs, and increasingly want to know more about him.
Noted Woody Guthrie writer and performer Charlie Maguire brings a treasure-trove of Woody’s best loved, and least known songs prefaced with introductions to each selection in Woody’s own words! Performed on acoustic guitar, harmonica, jaw harp and spoons it’s like going to the theatre and hearing Woody Guthrie’s words and songs for real, as if he were passing through your town. It’s humorous, it’s casual, it’s informative, and always entertaining. Minneapolis Star Tribune critic Jon Bream says of Maguire’s program “Unless Bob Dylan were to crash the party, you could not find a more apropos Minnesota musician to celebrate Woody Guthrie.”
Charlie’s recent review of “Woody Guthrie: Songs & Art, Words & Wisdom” by Nora Guthrie and Robert Santelli was syndicated in over 70 newspapers nationwide. As a writer and performer in his own right, Charlie was mentored personally by folksingers Lee Hays and Pete Seeger who knew and traveled with Woody. Maguire has also shared the stage with original Woody Guthrie interpreter Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, of whom Woody once said; “He sounds more like me than I do.”
Minneapolis folk club impresario Mary Tjosvold sums it up with her review of Charlie’s program saying “The show is magnificent, touching, and so timely!”
Running time approximately 75 minutes, BUT we can customize this show just for you! We can also provide PDF’s of a “Woody Guthrie Reading & Listening List” of books and recordings by him compiled by Charlie Maguire, as well as “His Songs Are Our Songs”, and “Woody Guthrie’s American Chorus” authored by Charlie and originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that can be duplicated on site and distributed to your patrons after the program.
Going To Bartalina: Commerical Sailing Songs & Stories Of The Great Lakes
Credit: U.S. Coast Guard-Linda Koutsky
“Do you know, where the sailor goes?
When he goes away, when he goes away?
He leaves his family And he leaves his home
And he sails away, to Bartalina”
-BARTALINA Words & Music by Charlie Maguire-All Rights Reserved
“Bartalina” is a Filipino term meaning “a job you can’t get out of”. Charlie Maguire learned that harsh fact and more-sailing through all of the Great Lakes and up the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Montreal on board M.V. NORDIC TRADER; from Duluth to Detroit; on WILLIAM CLAY FORD; and off Isle Royale and Houghton, Michigan; on the USCG Icebreaker/Buoy Tender SUNDEW-WLB-404 (While she was still in service).
Mirroring the duties of Third Mate on the first two vessels, and as a common enlisted Coast Guard deckhand on the last voyage, enabled him to write about the modern-day life of commercial sailing, that few if any persons can experience outside of choosing it as a career. Charlie was embedded in the day-to-day, hour-by-hour life of a sailor aboard commercial and U.S. Government vessels in a never-before heard-of opportunity to write absolutely authentic songs, and collect amazing personal stories of life aboard the big vessels on the Great Lakes and the maritime services that help keep them safe.
If you have ever seen a big ship entering a harbor, or glimpsed one out on the horizon, and wondered what it must be like to be onboard, then this program is for you. Charlie’s songs and stories make it as real as the wind in your face, the comradeship of the crew, and the movement of the deck under your feet.
Going To Bartalina: Commerical Sailing Songs And Stories On the Great Lakes by Songwriter/Performer Charlie Maguire.
Length: 60 Minutes plus Q.&A.
Staging: One 8 foot table and sound.
Appropriate for all ages, but intended for adults
“People absolutely loved this program. Charlie was a fantastic performer and storyteller. People were tapping their toes and dancing along.”
Arrowhead Library System Team Member
“Charlie is patient with children and takes the time to listen to them share their connections with the music and tell their own stories. He allows students to see themselves as entertainers by showing and sharing the gift of music with others by using their voice and heart.”
Mr. Terrones, St. Anthony Park Elementary School
“Charlie, you visited my classroom at Central Middle School in Eden Prairie, MN back in 1984 or 1985. I just read from your background that you were mentored by Pete Seeger and Don McLean, and about your long stint on A Prairie Home Companion.
I wouldn’t have known what any of that meant back then, but I sure do now. I can’t remember my 6th-grade teacher’s name, but I vividly remember how excited she was to be able to have you in class. Now I understand why! How awesome it must have been for her to introduce you to her students. I think you may have had some program where you’d sell students a jaw harp for a few bucks back then. I know I ended up with one at the time. I loved it, and (surprise) my parents hated it. I relentlessly twanged that thing around the house for weeks. It spent a couple years in a box somewhere before I found it again and discovered how much breathing played into the sound, so much more depth to the possibilities.
Anyhow, cool to see you’re still at it. I’ll try giving an album of yours a listen. With my 48-year-old ears, I think it’ll hit a little differently than when I was 11.
Cheers , Charlie, and good work still bringing music into kids’ lives! It’s important, and you are making a difference!”
Jon (a verified COMPAS student)
