Club Passim may not have been nearly as full as it should have been last Saturday evening, but that didn’t stop singer-songwriter Bobby Long from putting on one hell of a performance. The NYC by way of the UK based musician lit the room up with his humor filled banter between songs and well balanced voice for an hour and a half of songs, stories and a good laugh or two.

Long has this ability to maintain a certain sense of beauty in his voice despite it being frayed and tattered around the edges. There is an almost punk flavoring to his voice, the emotion seeps through his vocal and you can really feel the words that he is singing. The pain, the experience, the occasional self-deprecating nature of his songs that allows him to be incredibly endearing to the audience and weave his way into their hearts.

The songwriter also has a knack for writing blues inspired licks and riffing into his songs. He isn’t a 3 chord and the truth kind of a guy and his arrangements and guitar playing keeps his music interesting and engaging, even when its just him on stage with his jumbo Gibson acoustic.

Throughout the evening the audience was treated to a host of new songs from Long’s latest “Ode To Thinking” as well as a few old favorites. As he launched into the aptly named “Kill Someone” from that new album, he told the story behind it with a humorous grace and nobility…after mentioning his lawyer said he shouldn’t perform the song any longer. It’s theme being about a brother in law who wasn’t the kindest of men. Bobby’s writing has a dry wrought humor that balances the extremely serious nature of a situation with a bit of lightness. As he sung “there’s a man out there talking, speaking in tongues / losing his hair, bleeding gums” he paused to explain that karma perhaps is on our sides sometime as the antagonist of the story ended up with a bad case of male pattern baldness and gingivitis. He restarted the song, we got a taste of the sting of that line again and the impact was impeccable.

There is an authority and command in Bobby Long’s performances. His voice carries this incredible weight and power, all while maintaining this beauty and grace that draws you in. This show felt more like a comfortable evening in a friend’s living room watching an old pal tell stories and strum a guitar. It was a special one.