BILL STAINES: NONPLUSED LEGEND IN MUSIC WORLD

Due to a traffic jam in St. Louis, folk singer Bill Staines was hours late to begin Thursday afternoon's taping for the KRCU-FM show "Your Folk Connection." The taping lasted until after 6 p.m., leaving Staines' less than an hour to prepare for his performance at the Forrest H. Rose Theatre.

He was nonplused.

"It's not like I have to go through a huge rehearsal before the show," he said, laughing.

Staines is the original vagabond folkie. He needs only his guitar, a flannel shirt and his trademark leather hat to make most any stage his own. He is a legend in folk music circles, both for the longevity of his career and for the poetry and melodic mastery in his best songs.

Staines also is a storehouse of stories about the early days of folk. Before he began making a name for himself, he spent time "ferrying the Farinas around" -- early folkies Mimi and Richard Farina along with their German shepherd Lush.

He recalled seeing Bob Dylan remove his finger picks before playing "Don't Think Twice (It's All Right)" at a concert at MIT. "It was so gentle," Staines said. "It was perfect. To this day I take my finger picks off when I play that song."

In still awed terms, he described the Newport folk festival where Gordon Lightfoot sang "Early Morning Rain" and Staines knew "That's for me."

Flanked by "Your Folk Connection" co-hosts Barney Hartline, Terry Wright and Jim Hickam, Staines played five songs live and elucidated his musical influences -- the Weavers, the Kingston Trio, Mimi and Richard Farina, Gordon Lightfoot -- before some of their tunes were played for the audience.

The program will air at 7 p.m. June 6 on KRCU.

He also discussed music -- "Melody is the thing that opens the door to a song for me," he said -- and the relationship of a writer to a song. The cliche that the writer of a song feels like its parent is true, Staines said. "If you don't play it, don't nurture it, it dies."

Eventually the song moves out of the house and the writer has no control over what it does anymore, Staines said. "And if it's like a good child, once in awhile it sends home some money."

He also talked about his guitar technique -- a lefty, he learned to play a righthanded guitar upside down. "There's not a right way of playing something wrong," he said.

Both at the taping and in his concert that night, Staines performed an affecting song about the Lindberghs' journeys around the world aboard their seaplane. The plane is at the Smithsonian.

"I'm trying to bring other parts of the country to people," he said.

Staines, who appeared here a year ago, performed for two hours to warm applause from an audience of 90 Thursday night at the Rose Theatre. The concert was presented by KRCU.

Among the songs was a lonely tune about a coyote and "Roseville Fair," one of his most famous creations. He also sang a song about a race horse, recited a lengthy and hilarious poem about turnpike revenge, joked with the audience about the forgetfulness of growing older.

One thing Bill Staines could never forget is how to be entertaining.