By now, most of you folks reading this column are aware that I really enjoy talking with people for the first time (it usually leads to more conversations down the road, too) and so it should be no surprise when I say that my recent chat with singer/songwriter/guitarist Scott Kirby was a total delight. He’s been at his craft for over three decades, though he did start learning it much earlier as you shall soon discover, and has logged many miles touring (again, as you shall soon read for yourself) and won over many, many fans, and I count myself as one of the newest. And he’s ready to play One Longfellow Square in Portland Augusta 25 at 8 p.m. I had the pleasure of speaking with him on the phone on the morning of July 25.

Q: Good morning — I see you made it there.
Kirby: I made it last night. Driving from Maine to the Washington D.C. area on a Friday in the middle of the summer is my idea of living hell, but I made it.

Q: Oh, man, I bet it was, where were you in Maine?
Kirby: Well, I have a house in Kittery.

Q: Really! I imagine you were traveling for a gig?
Kirby: I play today down near Richmond and then tomorrow I have a show back here in Maryland, yeah; so I’m out on the road for about two weeks right now.

Q: How much time do you spend on the road?
Kirby: Well, I tour a lot between April and the middle of September. This year I played in Ireland for a week in May and when I got home to Maine on the 22nd of May, I went on the road for four weeks driving all the way to California and back. I was in the Mid-West for the whole month of July and now I’m mostly on the East Coast for August until the middle of September, and from the middle of September to Dec. 1st I take off and go to France. So I’ve probably done about 20,000 miles in the last eight or 10 weeks, I guess.

Q: Oh, my Lord…
Kirby: I might be getting a little too old for this (laughter). But after all that, I’ll go to Key West, which is still my official residence, where I stay from December to March. I have seven shows there in those three months, and that’s pretty much my performance schedule for that time period.

Q: Good grief, man, it’s exhausting just hearing about it! Now I assume that you’ve played at One Longfellow Square before, correct?
Kirby: I have, just before COVID struck as a matter of fact.

Q: So you’re coming back full circle.
Kirby: Exactly, and it’s a fantastic place to play solo or with a side musician. I played there with a lead guitar player three or four years ago, and venues like that are my favorite places to play in the country: the sound there is fantastic, the sight-lines are great, and it’s a jewel.

Q: Now back to your Maine connection, if I might.
Kirby: Well, I grew up in Concord, New Hampshire, but I summered over in York, Maine, a little bit when I was a kid, but New England’s a great place; the more I’m away the more I appreciate it.

Q: Just out of curiosity, are you working on a new release?
Kirby: I am, in fact, I’m going to Nashville a week from Monday to hopefully get everything done that I need to do and start the mixing process. I’m not going to release it until the spring, in March, I guess. I don’t know how many more of these albums I have in me at this point, but I’d like to get this one done before, ya know? (Chuckle)

Q: Yeah, I do. Now, what can folks expect from your show at One Longfellow?
Kirby: Well, I’m a singer/songwriter/acoustic guitar player, I’ve played since I was a kid, around 12. I’m a finger-style guitar player and I think my songwriting inspirations were very much the singer/songwriter movement of the 70s. I tried to learn how to play by listening to James Taylor records a thousand hours a week. I never had any lessons so I had to try and figure all that stuff on my own. The people I always listened to were Jerry Jeff Walker and Steve Goodman and Harry Chapin and Gordon Lightfoot, Jackson Browne, the classic 70’s guys, so my music happens to be in that vein. I do tell a lot of stories and inspirations for the songs and I’ve been doing this full-time since 1988. That’s the best thumbnail sketch I can give you (chuckle).

Q: It’s perfect, thanks. Now knowing you have a show to prepare for, is there anything you’d like me to pass on to the folks reading this article, Scott?
Kirby: Well, I’m a New England guy, my grandfathers on both sides were involved with the sea: one was a line fisherman in Newfoundland and the other was a sailor, so a lot of my songs are inspired by the sea, having lived on the ocean my whole life, either on the coast of New England or in Key West. I feel very comfortable playing in places like Portland, and One Longfellow is such a great venue to see this kind of music, I hope a good crowd of people will come out to my show there.

Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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