She’s a breath of fresh air on the scene. In addition to her solo disc, she also sings lead vocals for Bearfoot, the new bluegrass group. Check her out.

There are still seats available. Email jim@northshorepoint.com for reservations.

Here are the albums I listened to and enjoyed the most.

Garland Jeffreys – “The King of In Between”

Jeffreys’ first album in 13 years features his strongest material since 1991′s “Don’t Call Me Buckwheat,” one of the signature discs of that decade. Jeffreys typically moves easily through rock and roll, reggae, and folk blues as the melodic foundation for his mix of personal history and social commentary.

J.D. Souther – “Natural History”

Souther takes his considerable back catalog, notably songs like “New Kid in Town,” “Sad Cafe,” and “Best of My Love” that were hits for The Eagles, and strips them down to their basics. showcasing his silky voice.

Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers — “Starlight Hotel.”

What a revelation. Muth comes out of Seattle, but does country the old fashioned way, backed by pedal steel and telecaster. The songs are smart, funny, and sad. She’s an authentic new voice not to miss.

Tara Nevins – “Wood and Stone”

Nevins’s second solo effort is a stellar collection that moves easily from fiddle music to contemporary folk rock to Cajun. It’s an album that sounds familiar, yet new, not an easy feat. Nevins is joined by a few guests, notably Levon Helm, who pounds the skin on three cuts, Jim Lauderdale, who lends harmonies on the back porch sound of “Snowbird,” and Allison Moorer. Larry Campbell, the multi-instrumentalist genius who has played extensively with Bob Dylan in recent years, produces and lends his string talents all over the place.

The Low Anthem — “Smart Flesh”

The Low Anthem’s (http://www.thelowanthem.com) first major label effort is a haunting masterpiece, a new generation’s “Music From the Big Pink.” Like the mystical alchemy The Band conjured in a West Saugerties, New York, house, the four members of the Low Anthem have created a new sound, turning our expectations of Americana (or Alt Americana, if you will) on its head, partly by using the sonics of the place.

Greg Trooper – “Upside-Down World”

When the Hammond B-3 kicks in to start this album, trailed by Trooper’s resonant, soulful, alt-country vibrato, it’s clear one of America’s best (and underappreciated) songwriters is taking us along for another enchanting ride through a life of bruised relationships, guarded hopes, and interesting characters.

Lori McKenna – “Lorraine”

The image of Lori  McKenna is that of a blue collar housewife sitting at her kitchen table penning songs that somehow find their way onto the albums of country superstars (Faith Hill, Keith Urban). But that doesn’t do justice to the depth, subtlety and honesty of her songs, stripped down to their essence on her largely acoustic solo albums (although this one has strings in just the right places and background vocals from Kim Carnes).  She is the girl who married her high school sweetheart and quickly had babies — five in all. McKenna does the difficult — writing about life, real life, with an unerring eye. It’s all here, the shadowing doubts, the gentle joys, the people we recognize from our lives. McKenna is a staple of the Boston folk scene, but her voice is more heartland than right coast, more open spaces than urban races.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – “Here We Rest.”

Isbell transports us to his native Alabama with all the ups and downs through his stories. This one puts him into the same discussion as Steve Earle and other masterful storytellers.

Lucinda Williams – “Blessed”

For me, this was a return to form for Williams, a record with aching ballads, hard rockers and without the self consciousness of the last few.

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter – “Marble Son.”

Feedback-drenched psychedelia opens this disc, a harder shot of rock than her last one. Think of it as Americana meets Zeppelin in places. The lyrics are smart and mystical. And then there’s her voice, as alluring, as distinctive as any in music today.

The Civil Wars – “Barton Hollow”

Perhaps the surprise of the year, a quiet, intense, and beautiful melding of voices and talents. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

Wilco – “The Whole Love.”

A return to their ecclectic roots, with the expected twists and turns.

Danny Schmidt — “Man of Many Moons”

This is a smart working-man’s album, poetic and affecting, framed by Schmidt’s singing.

The Smithereens – “2011″

These guys, makers of such great rock and roll in the 1990s, hook up again with producer Don Dixon and lightning strikes twice. It’s all you’d expect from a Smithereens album.

What’s surprising about Floyd is that the vibe is energetic, more eclectic than you’d expect. It’s not only good ol’ boys in camouflage. Four decades ago, hippies began moving into this area to found communes next to working farms. Now, their children have grown, gone away and, in many cases, returned. North Carolinians favor Floyd as a spot for a second home in the mountains. All that contributes to a thriving community of artisans, old and new.

At first blush, old-time music and new-time hippies seem an unlikely pairing. But they’re both about community and craft. The stickers given to Friday patrons at the Country Store read “handmade music,” but Floyd is about more than just music crafted lovingly by hand.

You can still get good moonshine if you know someone who knows someone. But belly up to a table at any restaurant in town and you’ll be handed a list of craft brews on tap and in bottles that rival any big-city offering. You’ll find an old-fashioned biscuit so fluffy only the rich sausage gravy anchors it to your plate at the homey Blue Ridge Restaurant and a seared Muscovy duck breast that Tom Colicchio would love at the sophisticated Natasha’s Market Cafe. Need a handmade mountain banjo? There’s a luthier nearby. Looking for pottery, wood sculpture or paper artistry of the quality you’d expect down the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville or in urban galleries? Wander Troika, The Floyd Artists’ Association, and other galleries along Locust. The Hotel Floyd, a block off the main drag, is a stylish, eco-friendly lodge with rooms built by a local woodworker that feature local art.

Avett and his brother, Seth, had been in a hard rocking band, Nemo. When it fell apart, they decided to do something different: try acoustic instruments.

“I picked up the banjo because I recalled Kermit the Frog playing it. That was so romantic, so awesome,” he says, chuckling. “There was just such grace about it. There is a lot of irony in the banjo. The irony of it was why I turned to the banjo.”

He figured if he was going to play the banjo — and he wanted to learn enough songs to play a live set with the new band, dubbed The Avett Brothers — that he’d better learn some bluegrass music. He started listening to records by Old and In the Way, the group with Jerry Garcia, Peter Rowan and David Grisman.  They were not bluegrass pioneers, but a nice balance between old and new that appealed. He also fell in love with a disc by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Derrol Adams as well as dipping into the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly.

He took lessons from a fellow in North Carolina who taught him the Scruggs style. “I felt like there was some sort of foundation I needed to have before I would be able to validate going on stage with the banjo,” he says. For their first sets out, the Avetts played bluegrass tunes.

That didn’t last long, though. When they started writing songs, the brothers didn’t produce mountain music, but something entirely their own. As Avett says, “When it came to writing and applying the banjo to writing, a different thing was happening.”

And “a different thing” is about as good a description as any of sound produced by The Avett Brothers, who make a return visit to the Attucks Theatre on Friday. The band is Scott on banjo, Seth on acoustic guitar, Bob Crawford, the Yankee in the crew, on upright bass. They play unabashedly emotional, smart, music. At times it’s intense, acoustic instruments driven to the limit. At times, especially on their stellar new release, “Emotionalism,” it’s joyous pop as well as tender and thoughtful. Giving it some sort of tag is ultimately misleading.

Avett calls it pop, then concedes the term is so broad it has little meaning.  “What is the common denominator with us and music that we love?” he asks. “It’s not subject matter, it’s not genre, it’s not audience, and it’s not where you fit in the CD rack. It’s emotions. It’s where the music is written with or delivered with emotion.”

The brothers grew up in Concord, N.C. listening to a typically evolving play list. Their mother taught reading and their father was a welder who played country guitar. Scott remembers listening to the family’s eight-track player churning out John Denver, Three Dog Night and Dylan — obscure Dylan, or relatively obscure Dylan like “Desire.” As he got older, he became attached to Michael Jackson, Hall & Oates, Tom Petty, The Cars. And then it was on to hard rock, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix and the grunge scene.

One critic may have put it best. He called the Avetts “a band that exploits the tensions between the rustic Old South and the cosmopolitan New South, between rootsy bluegrass and rowdy punk rock, between reverence and irreverence.”

On this day, Avett is driving the band’s 31-foot RV from Salt Lake City to Boise, where they’ll pull up to an RV park and camp tonight before a show tomorrow.  Whatever you call their music, it’s catching. “Emotionalism” cracked the Billboard 200 at No. 134. Avett says the momentum has cranked up. They’re finding big audiences on the West Coast — 350 people showed up for their first Los Angeles show — in addition to their East Coast following (they sold out the North Carolina Museum of Art’s amphitheater — 2,700 tickets — earlier this year).

They had four unfinished songs they considered for the disc. Two of them made it, including “Die Die Die,” which is a slice of pure pop out of the Yo la  Tengo or Guided by Voices songbook. But these guys don’t stick to one sound for long. “Paranoia in B Major” could have come from The Band. “Living of Love” is as tender a ballad as you’ll find. And “Pretty Girl from Chile,” another in their series of “Pretty Girl” songs, contains a samba interlude.

As we talk, Avett returns to the music. They played in Aspen recently and a drunk in the front kept calling for Scott to fire up some bluegrass on his banjo. After the show, Amos Lee, a friend who was performing, came back stage to talk about the episode.

” I said (to him), ‘It’s so obvious to me all we are is just pop music,’ ” Avett says. “A.banjo is such a good instrument for pop music. But it might be something hard to swallow for some people.”

What he strives for is that dynamic tension between pop and roots, between old and new. “There’s a seriousness you hear in Townes van Zandt . There’s  nothing pop about it. To me, that’s the top of the mountain,” he adds. “But there’s a time of relief for us musically live that needs to happen. It’s a release that adds to the dynamic of the show. That’s what we find out of turning to a pop melody. This song is written on a light topic because that’s what we need right now.”

He could leave it there, but he doesn’t. He comes back to the tension, to the desire to cross that boundary. “You don’t always need that, of course,” he adds. “If that’s all you’re living on, it’s a very shallow life.”

(This story originally appeared in Port Folio in 2007).

The answers read like something out of an anarchist alchemist’s cookbook. Stick it in the microwave. Soak it in a barrel of water between turns in the field (a major leaguer actually did this). Massage shaving cream into the leather. Bake it in the oven. Slather it with oil, truss it like a Thanksgiving turkey, and stick it under your mattress like the valuable it is.

One thing is clear: players today, especially young players, demand gloves they can buy in the morning and use that afternoon.  Bob Clevenhagen, the glove designer for Rawlings for the past 28 years who has worked with dozens of players including Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Omar Vizquel, says even major leaguers are impatient. The ritual of breaking in a “gamer” still goes on and some players still have exotic rituals. But most stick their hand inside a glove in spring training, decide it’s right, and then break it in over time.

I profiled Clevenhagen, the Michelangelo of the mitt, for a forthcoming Smithsonian magazine story and, during the reporting, discussed breaking in gloves with him and Denny Esken, a longtime glove collector from the Pittsburgh-area who is also involved regionally with USA Baseball.

Clevenhagen and Esken are both partial to Rawlings “Heart of the Hide” gloves made with leather from the Chicago-based Horween Leather Co. Horween has been supplying Rawlings since 1932, about a decade after a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher named Bill Doak thought it might be a good idea to string a web between thumb and forefinger and asked the local sporting goods firm, Rawlings, to make one.

Clevenhagen says the leather is more consistent and of better quality than in decades past. You can get a glove made by the same guys who create them for big leaguers — Clevenhagen and two assistants — by ordering a custom mitt from Rawlings via the East Bay site or Rawlings. 

These days, Clevenhagen says he automatically chooses the softest leather unless requested otherwise, but if you have questions about a glove, he’s easy to reach. Just call Rawlings and ask for him.

When you get a new glove, Esken says what makes it stiff today isn’t the leather, but the padding and any plastic inserts. Four years ago, I ordered a Rawlings Pro Player Preferred glove online (model PROS12IC favored by middle infielders) that I intended to break in and then give to my son. At the time, I also bought a cheap Nike Show Team dri fit glove to use on days when it rained or the fields were wet.

After hundreds of hours playing catch and quite a few hours rubbing in the lanolin-based homemade conditioner, Mitt Master Formula III, sold at Grand Slam, the Pro Player Preferred glove remains a little stiff. Not too stiff for me, but for my son, who has nabbed the Nike and, so far, uses it exclusively. (If you’re a fan of the coditioner, get your supply now; when I was in Grand Slam recently, they told me the guy who makes the milky formula is retiring).

Esken explained why. In addition to the stiff padding, the Pro Preferred gloves have a plastic insert along the thumb. “You’ll never break in that glove with that in there,” he said, offering to remove it.

“The best way to break in a glove is with a little bit of steam,” Esken says. The Mizuno steamer, like the at Grand Slam in Virginia Beach, is a good tool although he suggests not using the oil spray that’s often suggested. He also says you can just wrap a glove in a towel and put in in your dryer for a tumble. Getting some heat and moisture into the padding loosens it, helping to break in the glove faster. Clevenhagen, meanwhile, is partial to using the end of a bat to form the pocket.

Esken is widely considered a walking encyclopedia of gloves. He authenticates game-used mitts for an auction house. He says he’s sold some of his collection in recent years, but at one time he owned gloves flashed in games by Johnny Bench (the 1975 World Series), Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Roberto Alomar, Ozzie Smith, Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton.

His prized possessions are mitts used by Mickey Mantle, including his 1956 gamer, the glove that caught Gil Hodges’ blast to left-center field, preserving Don Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series (it’s on loan to the Hall of Fame). I’d talked with Joe Torre about that catch for my story on the 75th anniversary of old Yankee Stadium years ago and it turns out that Esken, too, has spoken to him about it. Torre was in the left field bleachers that day and felt like Mantle was running to him as he made the backhand catch.

I mentioned to Esken that my first glove was a Rawlings Mickey Mantle model my father purchased using Phillies cigar rings and he knew the model number and the promotional deal. My father loved Mantle and I came to love him, too, even after I read “Ball Four” in sixth grade.

Looking for an image of that mitt online, I found the glove with its distinctive metal button on the wrist strap sold for $3.39 in those days if you also sent in 20 Phillies cigar rings, which my dad collected.  I used that mitt through Little League, then turned it into an autograph glove I toted to Reading Phillies (AA) games where it was signed by future big leaguers Larry Bowa and Greg Luzinski.

      That glove was for a Little Leaguer so it was small, but they’re not so small these days. Esken says the glove Mantle used to patrol the center field expanse in Yankee Stadium today would be used by a middle infielder. “The glove that Robeto Clemente used, the PG12, is the same glove Ozzie Smith used at shortstop.  The glove Mickey Mantle used in center field is the same glove Mike Schmidt used at third base,” he adds.

The good news for me is the Pro model I got for my son is only an 11.25 inch glove, probably too small for him at his preferred position of third base. And that means we’re in the market for a new glove. For him, of course. Only for him.

Here’s a snippet of the story:

In recent years, Dr. Daily has expanded her research to include a global focus. She is one of the pioneers in the growing worldwide effort to protect the environment by quantifying the value of “natural capital” — nature’s goods and services that are fundamental for human life — and factoring these benefits into the calculations of businesses and governments. Dr. Daily’s work has attracted international attention and has earned her some of the world’s most coveted environmental awards.

Part of Dr. Daily’s interest in natural capital emerged from her research in Costa Rica, where she became intrigued with an innovative government initiative known as Payment for Environmental Services. The program, initiated in the 1990s, pays landowners to maintain native forest rather than cut it and has contributed to a significant reduction in Costa Rica’s deforestation rate.

The Costa Rican program helped inspire Dr. Daily to co-found the Natural Capital Project in 2006. NatCap, as the program is known, is a venture led by Stanford University, the University of Minnesota and two of the world’s largest conservation organizations, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. It aims to transform traditional conservation methods by including the value of “ecosystem services” in business, community and government decisions. These benefits from nature — like flood protection, crop pollination and carbon storage — are not part of the traditional economic equation.

I first wrote about the value of nature for National Wildlife several years ago. Over the years, I’ve done several stories about Daily’s work. In that first piece, I used New York’s water system as an example of prudent investment in nature.

What’s this ecosystem worth to the city of New York? So far, $1.3 billion. That’s what the city has committed to build sewage treatment plants upstate and to protect the watershed through a variety of incentive programs and land purchases. It’s a lot of money. But it’s a fraction of the cost of the filtration plant—a plant, city officials note, that wouldn’t work as tirelessly or efficiently as nature.

“It was a stunning thing for the New York City council to think maybe we should invest in natural capital,” says Stanford University researcher Gretchen Daily. Daily is one of a growing number of academics—some from economics, some from ecology—who are putting dollar figures on the services that ecosystems provide. She and other “ecological economists” look not only at nature’s products—food, shelter, raw materials—but at benefits such as clean water, clean air, flood control and storm mitigation, irreplaceable services that have been taken for granted throughout history. “Much of Mother Nature’s labor has enormous and obvious value, which has failed to win respect in the marketplace until recently,” Daily writes in the book The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable.

I live in Norfolk, a city dealing with sea level rise and the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay. Every time an economic downturn threatens federal and state coffers, politicians who can only see to the next election, slash funding to protect the Chesapeake Bay. That’s ridiculously short-sighted The Bay is a huge economic engine, as I wrote about for Port Folio some time back.

There are strands of information scattered about that provide a glimpse of the Bay watershed’s value and what is being lost to its continuing decline.

The Blue Ribbon Finance Panel devoted one page of its 44-page report last year to economic issues. The panel noted that in Maryland, for example, economists have measured recreational boating activity at $2 billion a year. In Pennsylvania, the estimate is $4.7 billion a year for fishing activities across the whole state, resulting in 43,000 jobs outfitting, lodging and guiding anglers. (Interestingly, that means recreational fishing is a bigger industry than agriculture in the state, according to 2001 figures, which totaled $4.4 billion).

“Any way you calculate it, the economic value of the Bay and its rivers is enormous. Homes along the waterfront are often valued in the hundreds of thousands or even in the millions of dollars,” the report added. “Businesses in the region are able to attract top-notch talent because of the lure of the Chesapeake. In fact, from real estate to shipping to seafood and tourism, it would be difficult to identify a major segment of the region’s economy that is not shaped and enhanced by the Chesapeake.”

The report even dipped into ecosystem services, noting that a clean environment has direct benefits for human health by citing the Bush Administration’s claim that health benefits under the Clean Air Act would grow to $110 billion per year by 2020, including 14,000 avoided deaths.

It is past time to consider the value of natural capital and realize what we don’t preserve and protect now will only cost us more in the long run.

(Top two photos are from Costa Rica; the bottom one is from the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina).

Bill was a character who wrote great characters in his songs and his fiction (he published two novels). His voice, both on the page and coming out of speakers, was an instantly recognizable corduroy croak. He battled the demons over the years, something he documented in a 2009 post on his web site, but the word was he was feeling better lately.

On his site, the announcement of his death included a description of the last week that says he’d found some peace:  “It is fitting, though, that this last week he was staying with his dear friend, Fred Koller and his wife and he had chosen to stay in their airstream. He loved it.  And, he spent a day or two admiring Fred’s bookstores and the incredible used books and first and second editions of books that Bill has admired for years.  He also performed at a lovely house concert and had a great time playing.  He was at the motel as a stop before driving up to the Philadelphia area to visit his Mom. And he was happy and upbeat about all of these things.  “

He played North Shore Point House Concerts in 2002 . He put on a great show and was a gracious, funny, guest.  I’d fallen hard for him a year earlier, when I purchased “Something I Saw or Thought I Saw.” The album made my best of 2001 list.  “Rightly compared to Richard and Linda Thompson’s classic, “Shoot Out the Lights,” Morrissey has captured a romance fracturing, ” I wrote then. “He remains one of the best storytellers in song, portraying a lonely night at the Chelsea Hotel perfectly in “23rd Street,” the sadness of old age in “Traveling by Cab” and offering just a bit of hope with “Will You Be My Rose.”

I quickly caught up with his career and learned what I’d been missing. He could — and did — bring me to tears with his songs.  His “Birches,” about a longtime marriage, is about as perfectly written a song as you will find. Listening to his music over the past couple of days has been the saddest of pleasures.

The Boston Globe has a fine obituary.

Oh, it had rained before on nights I’d hosted shows at my series, North Shore Point House Concerts, but we always either had rented a tent or put the performers in the spacious wood garage. Hours earlier, my sound man and I, coddled by the clear forecast, had decided to set up outside under blue skies.

By the time the sheet of water descended, we’d covered the stage with one canopy and the sound board with another. People raced to shelter onstage, in the garage, and in the house. “We should go inside and just play acoustic,” Tara said, huddling onstage as fans retrieved garbage bags to cover the instruments.

Fans with umbrellas and garbage bags ferried others inside during the deluge. There was food. There was drink. I shared bottles of Woodford Reserve and Knob Creek that I’d stashed away for the after-show. The air conditioning couldn’t keep pace; makeshift fans were fashioned.

Tara and Carol Elizabeth fixed themselves a fresh drink and sat in front of the living room fireplace. Furniture was pushed to the walls and people crowded in, many settling on the floor at their feet, a new fashioned bluegrass sit-in. Others crammed the entryway and the nearby dining room, some talking, others jockeying for a spot closer.

Tara and Carol Elizabeth played, and played, and then, when they wanted to finish, the crowd begged for one more, an old fiddle tune. A couple who attends nearly every show sat cross-legged right in front, fanning them as the music got hotter and hotter. A Donna the Buffalo fan, at his first North Shore Point show, swayed against the rear wall, occasionally singing along, encouraged by the Woodford Reserve and the moment. A daughter, up from Durham with her father, mouthed the lyrics to every song (Here is a link to their review of the evening).

They played everything they knew, outlasting the storm. With every song, every laugh or bit of applause, every shared nod, the evening became symbolic of the magic that’s happened time and again on these nights.

House concerts are many things. They’re about exploration, the thrill of discovery, of finding a new voice worth hearing. They’re about intimacy, a chance to break down the barrier between artist and audience. They’re often the only chance to get a coveted songwriter to play in this town (or many other towns, apparently; we’ve had fans travel from Nashville, Durham, D.C. and other far-flung locales for shows).

They’re about becoming a part of a community, meeting people with a shared interest in music — and maybe beer and wine and conversation. No doubt, dozens of those connections have been made at my house over the past decade. They’re about people like Bill, Mary, Mike, Wendy, Marc, Lou, Minnie, Gail, Sid, Ron, Gayle, Pat, Kelly, Russ, Barry, Charlie, Lisa, Ray, Sound Man Jim, and others who attend show after show, probably almost as much for the community as the music.
To me, house concerts, at least, my house concerts, ultimately are about these shared moments, moments created by the performer, but enabled by the setting and the community.

In the early days, artists and particularly their agents had to be convinced to book a house concert. Because of our attendance — we’ve had up 205 people at a show although a usual crowd is 80 to 100 — I’ve been able to make guarantees that made them easier to convince. Now, there are hundreds of house concert series, large and small, regularly and irregularly scheduled, across the country. They’re a part of the business plan for songwriters new and old. For every show we host, I could book five more.

At our series, all the donations at the door go to the artist. We front the money for sound, lights, chairs, when necessary, and a small stage when necessary. We do shows in three formats, outside, inside our spacious old garage, and in our living room, depending on the season and the demand for seats. Only a couple of times has the door failed to meet my guarantees and the one time the shortfall was serious happened to be the night a couple of regulars decided (not knowing) that they’d make a huge donation to help cover our costs. So, yes, each show is a nervy game of “will I cover the guarantee?,” but as host it’s my job to get the artists a decent payday.

The reward, of course, is being the maestro of those magic moments, so many over roughly 60 shows. We had a successful free trial run with Michael Lille, a superb songwriter native to Nofolk. The first show we booked asking for a donation came six months later and featured Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, a duo I’d heard on NPR. True to the shows that would follow, the informal setting encouraged them to try a song so new that Tracy read the lyrics from a notebook page. What I called the “dark womb” song appeared years later after Dave’s tragically early death on Tracy’s solo album as “Mother, I Climbed,” a haunting meditation on faith.

Indulge me looking back over a decade of the moments since that first show. Garland Jeffreys saying he didn’t need an introduction, then walking among the milling crowd, singing “Moonshine in the Cornfield” a cappella winding his way to the stage. Greg Trooper, master storyteller, mesmerizing on a chilly October night with a tale about a guy in a bar in Oklahoma, who during the break, told him he sounded just like one of his favorite songwriters, Greg Trooper.

Jeff Black bringing men to tears closing his first set with “Sunday Best” and “Gold Heart Locket. ” Jim Lauderdale saying the house had a “great vibe,” writing a song between sound check and the show, and then enduring an evening during which the electricity flickered during the first set until we realize the line into the house was literally burning out and ran extension cords to the side with good juice. Eliza Gilkyson‘s delight at returning — and then returning again. Kim Richey enchanted by her first house concert such that she sang until her voice surrendered (and then enchanted my children the next morning). She wasn’t the only first-timer. Garland Jeffreys, Dave Alvin, Steve Forbert, Marshall Crenshaw, Tom Russell, Tara Nevins, and others were house concert virgins who left converts.

There was Jason Ringenberg swinging his guitar and narrowly missing decapitating a front row fan and stomping the hardwood so hard with his boot heel that people checked for dents during halftime. Jimmy LaFave and band (a rare band show) coming into the garage on a threatening night and openly wondering if it could hold 90 people (including some outside space) and whether it was a good idea, then blowing the roof off during a summer shower and raving about the vibe and the community after the show. Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell and band hitting on all cylinders on a raucous and sweltering night. Don Dixon and Marti Jones, together again, leading the audience singing “Praying Mantis” as a round. Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion’s very young daughter singing on stage for the first time. Sam Baker showing up with John Fullbright and Natalia Zukerman, two artists I didn’t know well, and deciding it would be cool to sit in the round with Kevin Welch and play songs all night, which the four of them made memorable. Amy Rigby making some of the men in attendance noticeably uncomfortable with songs like “Balls,” “Cynically Yours,” and “Beer and Kisses.”

The guys in Jimmy LaFave’s band lingered after the show to talk with fans. “You’ve got a special thing going on here,” one veteran of the road said. We hear that a lot, and, like hearing a regular has discovered a new favorite artist, it never gets old.

There are the before show dinners, at their best a respite for good food and conversation (at their worst, when musicians are late, a rushed feast as fans file in). Peter Case remembered the seared salmon with champagne vinegar potato sauce and requested it the next time. Mary Gauthier, once a chef, offered a bow to the honey gingered pork tenderloin. Eliza Gilkyson gobbled up the black bean and rice salad. Madison Violet squirreled away the leftovers for the long, after-show road trip to Toronto.

After the show, there’s often bourbon and BS. Welch, Baker, and Fullbright sipping bourbon and discussing an artist’s responsibility to his audience. David Olney debating racism in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” firing bourbon-laced ice at his antagonist. Trooper telling tales about Dan Penn, finishing songs for Aretha by writing in a studio closet. Martin Stephenson and his dobro player sitting out back, joining with a few regulars with guitar to play until 3 a.m. Often, artists, staying with us, hang around talking into the night, like the night John Fullbright,  a brilliant young songwriter, shared his passion for Mickey Newbury.

Having Welch and Richey both recommend David Olney, then months later booking Olney and walking by a regular sitting in the back at the show, who said, “This guy is **&^* incredible. Where did you find him?”

Those moments are why I’m still excited before every show, why I’ve already booked shows into 2012 with artists like Steve Forbert, Garland Jeffreys, Kim Richey who’ve been here before, and artists new to North Shore like Nora Jane Struthers, Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin, Peter Cooper and Eric Brace and the legnedary folk/blues master, Eric Andersen. So I’m pouring two fingers of Knob Creek and raising a toast, not to the past,  but to the future and another decade of magic moments.

When you’re helping to raise a 15-year-old daughter and your first album in 13 years is about to hit the market, there’s a reason to map out an ambitious future.

Jeffreys has been playing the occasional festival in Europe and the odd show here and there over the last decade, but mostly what he’s been is a full partner with his wife, Claire, raising their daughter, Savannah, in New York.

“She’s benefited from two parents who’ve been around,” he adds. “I didn’t see any reason to have a child and raise a child if you weren’t going to be around.”
She’s learned well, giving the old man a run for his money. She has a fan following on Youtube and a solo gig at The Bitter End later this month. “We’re raising an entrepreneurial rock and roller,” he says from his apartment near the East Village. “”That’s what you’ve got to be today.”

With Savannah Jeffreys well on her way, it’s time for dad to get back in the game, something Jeffreys does emphatically with “The King of In Between,” an effort worth the long wait.

“I wanted to make an album that means something,” he says. “I’ve really set the standards high and I’ve struggled at times to make songs that would work and are representative of me and what I’m thinking.”
The album features his strongest material since 1991′s “Don’t Call Me Buckwheat,” one of the signature discs of that decade. Jeffreys typically moves easily through rock and roll, reggae, and folk blues as the melodic foundation for his mix of personal history and social commentary.

“It’s very simple,” he says. “The music I grew up with and listened to my whole life is coming through me when I’m working.” That’s everything from Frankie Lymon to Dinah Washington to The Band to Dylan to Hank Williams and Motown.

“Some artists are easily recognized,” he adds. “Every song can sound the same on an album. I’m the opposite. I like the idea of trying to come up with a sequence of songs that are different from one another and make it work. That’s the challenge.”
For the album, Jeffreys called in favors from friends old and new. Steve Jordan plays drums, Brian Mitchell mans the keys, Mike Merritt is on bass and most of the guitar parts are played by Duke Levine and Larry Campbell. “One of the key things I say to these guys is I have no money,” Jeffreys says, chuckling. “They don’t call me for a month after that. But they understand. Any time someone asks me to sing on an album, I do it for free. You have to help out one another.”

Jeffreys called up Campbell, who he’d met in passing over the decades, and asked him to drop by his apartment to hear a few songs. The idea was for Campbell to contribute guitar and violin. But when they started recording, the two got along so well that Campbell became the album’s co-producer.
“I think the common thread — what I’m always looking for — is an honest interpretation of who you are,” Campbelladds, the morning after he’d played another one of Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles upstate. “He does that really well. The genre isn’t important. It’s about being true to yourself and expressing that. If that’s there, then I’m in.”

Campbell’s favorite cut on the disc is “Streetwise,” a slice of string-fueled Philly soul laid behind Jeffreys’ reflections on the world his child faces. Jeffreys suggested Campbell arrange the strings. Instead, he came into the studio one day with two violins and began laying down the string parts. “He doesn’t get off the seat for four hours,” Jeffreys recalls. “He lays down al lthe strings himself. I’d never seen anything like it before. The guy is amazing.”

Even Campbell says: “I think we really nailed something there. I think we really crystallized Garland’s initial vision of that tune.”

Jeffreys did return to the strudio for a couple of cuts because he felt there wasn’t enough energy on the record. One, “Coney Island Winter,” kicks off the album with ringing rock guitars and a deadpan delivery that owes a little to Jeffreys’ longtime friend, Lou Reed, who he met while a student at Syracuse University in the 1960s (Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals was another running mate there).

Other cuts like “All Around the World” and “The Contortionist,” featuring Reed and Savannah Jeffreys on background vocals, dip into reggae. “‘Til John Lee Hooker Calls Me” is a a shuffle that would make ZZ Top proud.

“Sooner or later gonna dust my broom,” he sings. It’s one of two songs on the album about facing mortality; the other is “In God’s Waiting Room.” “Here I am loving the song. I check with Larry and Steve and they think it’s great. I bring it home and my wife and daughter hate it,” he says. “I’m not connecting with the idea it could mean I’m going to die. I’m thinking about what a great song it is.”

Jeffreys admits he’s been wondering recently if he’ll live long enough to be around when his daughter makes her first record or gets married. “I’m not planning on leaving any moment too soon,” he says. “I’m healthy. I have no illnesses.”

The songs were written over the last five years and many were played live in the studio with the band. “There’s nothing like having a great band, a great bunch of players,” Jeffreys says. “You go over it, you get the chords straight and lay the track down, vocals at the same time, and there it is. You can add a couple of things afterwards.”

There is a sweetness as well as a toughness to his writing. The album explores the New York of his youth and of today, moving from remembrances of Coney Island to what he sees on the street outside his Stuyvesant Town apartment, where he says he likes to go down and sit in the park and shot the breeze.

As always, Jeffreys explores race and identity, which he addressed directly on “Don’t Call Me Buckwheat,” notably with “Hail, Hail Rock ‘N’ Roll” and “The Color Line.”

Jeffreys himself found it hard to fit in (listen to “I May Not Be Your Kind’). His father was the product of black and white parents. His grandmother was Puerto Rican. His grandfather was part Native American. He was raised Catholic, the only family of color in church.

“There was the awkwardness of being different,” he says, singing a line from “Spanish Blood:” “Say you’re Spanish; say you’re Spanish blood.”

That’s what he did as a youth, pass as Spanish, not black. “I would hide and get through,” he adds, hiding in his own skin.

And he notes that his daughter is a mixture of races as well and “lives in a world that is totally accepting. She said to me, ‘Dad, that’s your problem, not mine.’ “

“I absolutely love to see my daughter with her friends hanging out on the basketball court with all kinds of kids,” he adds. “It’s that way now.”

Jeffreys started singing in kindergarten. He remembers crooning “Do the Huckle Buck,” offering a few lines during the interview. When he was older, he sang “It’s Almost Tomorrow” at an assembly. “That was it, man,” he says remembering. “That was the way a career started.”
After studying at Syracuse and abroad in Italy, he dropped out of graduate school and started a band. He moved upstate for a while, then returned to the city.

In 1973, he released his first solo album, “Garland Jeffreys.” A single not on the album, “Wild in the Streets,” became an FM radio hit. Among those who played on the tune were Dr. John and the Brecker Brothers.
His biggest hit came later in the 1970s with “Matador” off the “American Boy and Girl” album. The tune hit the top of the charts in several European countries. “It came out in ’79 and it still produces revenue and helps provide for our lifestyle,” he says. “I wish every songwriter has one of these.”

Most of his catalog is out of print, but he intends to get them back on the shelves and online in the next few months.
Jeffreys turns 68 this month, but he looks and sounds much younger. Being a songwriter hasn’t been easy over the past decade. He’s remained big in Europe; he’ll play festivals in Spain and Belgium this summer with his Europe-based band, The Coney Island Playboys. But he’ll focus more on playing in the States, building again a fan base.

Jeffreys headed upstate to play a Midnight Ramble with Helm and Campbell a few weeks ago, closing the show with a sing-along of “The Weight.” “I’m glad he’s doing it again,” Campbell says. “You can see he’s got all that enthusiasm and fire. He just gives it up. He’s the real thing.