“Charlie Rauh plays guitar with a quiet intensity, each note and chord ringing with purpose,” writes Acoustic Guitar Magazine. “Rauh gives a gentle reminder that playing soft and slow can be more impactful than loud and fast.” With these words, we find ourselves in the company of a musician whose imprint is as delicate as it is indelible.

The wonders of Rauh’s upbringing seem directly encoded into the music he creates. Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, he spent much of his time outside by his lonesome, humming melodies to scenes unfolding only in his mind. This cinematic consciousness carried over into the films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s beloved by his parents. An appreciation for that classic sound, and Duke Ellington as its shepherd, first drew him to pursue the clarinet and alto saxophone at age 11. But when Rauh asked his father—a guitarist who played regularly at their local church—to show him a few chords, those six versatile strings caught him in their net. “With the guitar,” Rauh recalls, “I could connect to all the different kinds of music I was listening to. My dad always had a way of bringing Americana elements and sparse finger-style technique together on the guitar—a sound that I absolutely loved (and still love). That early influence permeated all the styles of music I got into and truly acted as a foundation.” Said foundation would play host to a constellation of diverse touchpoints that included Django Reinhardt, Radiohead, and Patsy Cline as he sought stride as a songwriter in a chain of rock bands.

After studying jazz guitar for a spell at Shenandoah Conservatory, he moved to Nashville, where he sometimes played backup for local songwriters. One night, local producer Jim Reilley, who was in attendance, immediately noticed Rauh’s talent. Says Rauh of the encounter, “He would be the first person to put me in a real studio, playing with some of the best players in Nashville to work on tracking sessions, as well as my own music. It was a pivotal moment. From then on, I knew I had to compose and record.” Rauh then made the daunting decision to relocate to New York City, making music his full-time pursuit.

In the transience of those teeth-cutting years, he gained valuable experience as a sideman, exploring everything from pop, rock, folk, and R&B to country, electronic music, and jazz. It was during a tour in France, where an onsite recording session had been delayed, that he asked the onsite engineer to record something original. With that, Viriditas was born. Of that debut solo album, All About Jazz wrote, “These quiet tunes dust off a few neglected shelves of the human soul, and from them pull down vials filled with brightness.” Its creation was at once the closing of a circle and the opening of another. The first melody he ever composed, roaming in those fields of childhood, became the final track: a nostalgic tune called “Arolen,” named for the street on which he grew up. The quiet inevitability of its inclusion was reflective of the special relationship he had cultivated with the guitar, an instrument that blessed him with safety and adaptability in equal measure. The Orkesterjournalen puts it best in this regard: “Rauh shows that he is a skilled and inspiring musician who also possesses a very personal and clear tone that allows nobody to be left untouched.” This welcoming spirit is part and parcel of his artisanal craftsmanship.

While Rauh styles himself a folk artist, the sound he has created fashions worlds a shade removed from ours. More importantly, he experiences his process as one of distillation. His music avoids excess, which may be its closest affinity with folk music—a tradition typically associated with something stripped back, honest, and, above all, relatable. “Music meant to be remembered and shared,” as Rauh would have it. Such attention to the simplicity of detail, if not also the detail of simplicity, is echoed in many of the accolades Rauh has received from top music journals around the world, which join him in circling the ever-moving target of his motivation to create something as intimate and ephemeral as it is melodically potent. 

Rauh is currently signed to Austin-based label Destiny Records and is an endorser for Collings Guitars and La Bella strings. He has been invited to serve as a resident composer by such organizations as the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Louisiana State University, the Klaustrid Foundation, and the Chen Dance Center. His work as a soloist has been supported by grants from Meet the Composer, the Untitled Artist Group, the Fractured Atlas Group, and New York Foundation For The Arts. In addition to his sonic inspirations, he welcomes the imagery of various poets, ranging from Anna Akhmatova to the Brontës. The latter were the theme of his 2020 album, The Bluebell, which brought about a new chapter of his introspective approach. As a supporting artist, Rauh works with a variety of colleagues across several genres, both as a touring sideman and a studio musician and arranger, including work with Wilco drummer Ken Coomer, Magnetic Fields producer Charles Newman, Tom Waits producer Oz Fritz, Sparklehorse contributor Alan Weatherhead, and Pulitzer nominee Cornelius Eady.

-Tyran Grillo