John Craigie blends modern themes with folk tradition

The first time you hear John Craigie, you might get a quick shiver of recognition, thinking he sounds like a young Bob Dylan, channeling the roughened voices of storytellers past.

You might nod your head in admiration for the way he winds up a story. He may meander, but he has purpose, leading you down one narrative path, then another, until “you’re right back where you been,” as he sings in “I am California.”

Or you might just get lost in the stories that he tells, give up the need to compare and let yourself laugh and feel and enjoy the ride.

“Bob Dylan never played here,” Craigie sings in his 2016 song “Manifesto”: “Tonight, all that matters is whether/ or not/ I suck.”

His bravado, comic timing and talent make an impression. Craigie, 37, is unashamed in his embrace of folk music, with its centuries-long legacies, and he’s brash in proclaiming his place at today’s table.

As Craigie sings, again on “Manifesto,” from his 2016 live album “Capricorn in Retrograde… Just Kidding… Live in Portland”: “If my generation’s going to make any impact at all, there’s one thing we need to believe: We need to believe that the songs that we write can be better than the songs written by the legends of our past. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

And if you’ve been listening, you’re likely to think to yourself, “Yeah!”

You can see why Jack Johnson took a shine to him, inviting Craigie along on tour in 2017. Johnson, too, has a deceptively mellow facade, but reveals a revolutionary determination on closer inspection.

Turns out Craigie connected with Johnson via a fluke, in a way: A friend gave Johnson a Craigie CD, and when Johnson couldn’t get satellite reception in his car, he popped it in.

Craigie’s music made an impression on Johnson, as it has tended to do with most listeners.

“He wanted me to come out there (Hawaii) and he wanted to meet me,” Craigie said. A small show at the Surfjack Hotel was arranged.

“At that point, (Johnson) brought out the crowd because I pretty much didn’t have any Oahu fan base,” Craigie noted. “And so I went out there and I stayed with his family for a few days. … It was great!”

He admits, “When you think about the people that you’re going to meet along the way, I was thinking along the lines of Arlo Guthrie, James Taylor, John Prine — who you imagine as you walk up the path. And then I was in his guest room, and I was like, hey, this is really random, you know?

“But he was so kind and very complimentary, which was obviously a huge honor, and I’ve always been a big fan of everything he’s done, and so, it was cool!

“And he’s a great storyteller and a great dad. We hung out there with his family. I was up there for about three days.”

“It doesn’t happen that way in the business that much,” Craigie said.

“The world that I live in is Americana, singer-songwriter, storyteller, where the songs are sit-down and quiet, and I focus a lot on the stories, and not on the pop or the party aspect,” Craigie explains.

For people to listen is the most important thing, he said.

“With a lot of my heroes, it’s just one guy and a guitar,” he notes. “If you’re not listening, it’s not that interesting. … I want people remembering the songs.”

As with many of the most-admired folk singers, Craigie’s music is wily and, while it’s often humorous, it’s also cutting. It may seem comforting at first, but it also contains hidden meanings.

In “I Am California,” from the 2017 album “No Rain, No Rose,” Craigie creates an extended comparison between residing in the state and struggling with the costs and complications of a relationship, singing, “Yeah dig all my gold/ Soak in my springs/ Conquer my mountains/ If that’s what you need.”

He got started in California, where he grew up. Attending college in Santa Cruz, he began playing music around town, but after a while, he said, the venues told him he needed to take longer breaks between appearances, so he went on the road.

“I started driving around, just meeting a lot of people, which is such an amazing experience — just to see these common things, getting stories that are unique but relatable, and that was what I wanted to write about,” Craigie said.

Ultimately, it’s “the human experience” that he seeks to translate.

“I always like to say that the purpose of music isn’t necessarily to make you feel better, but to make you feel like you’re not alone. That’s always my main intention.”

In past weeks, Craigie has been touring with ALO, aka Animal Liberation Orchestra, through a connection that is also traceable to Johnson: Zach Gill, ALO’s lead singer, is the piano player for Johnson’s touring band.

He has a new live album coming out in a couple of months, he said, recorded in Portland, as was his last studio album, “No Rain, No Rose.”

He’s continuing his collaborations with Portland musicians he worked with, but says he expects his next album in the studio will go “smaller,” with a more intimate sound than “No Rain,” with its family-band feel.

In 2015, he released an electric album, “Working on My Farewell,” and says he would record with electric instruments again.

“When I think of an electric guitar, I’m really interested in the space that it creates,” he said. “With electric, it’s more mellow when I play it, because I can turn the reverb up. … I know I will want to revisit that at some point. But for me, the acoustic guitar is good for telling the story of the troubadour, and it has that rhythm kind of built in, with the way that I play it, and it’s more upbeat.”

While Craigie continues to explore and experiment with different groupings and styles of recording, his dedication to the road and life of a singing, songwriting troubadour — another label he doesn’t duck — doesn’t waver.

“I’ve always been fascinated with music, ever since I was a kid,” he said. “I thought I had something to give to that. But I thought you had to be discovered, and that was kind of discouraging.

“It wasn’t until I got to Santa Cruz that I got to see that if you wanted to play music, you just played music. You didn’t have to wait for someone to approve of you.

“From that moment on, I didn’t worry about anything other than just telling the truth, and doing what I felt.”