FOLK SINGER BILL STAINES MAKES NEW OLD FRIENDS (REVIEW)

Folk-singing legend Bill Staines has a voice like Motel 6's Tom Bodett's, a gently reassuring instrument made for telling yarns and bedtime stories.

In fact, he wryly confides from beneath his floppy leather hat, people tell him they put on his tapes to put their kids to sleep.

It's true, Staines' singing and effortlessly rich guitar playing are as comfortable as an old shoe, but his songs reveal a literate writer with a talent for turning American still lifes into moving pictures.

Staines performed Thursday night before an enthusiastic audience of 110 at the Forrest H. Rose Theatre on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. The concert was a benefit for KRCU 90.9 FM Radio.

A Staines concert is a one-man performance by someone who has traveled the country for 25 years with his ears open and his guitar in tune. He provoked laughs by inviting the audience to sing along on a chorus that begins "Rooty toot toot for the moon." He also put lumps in throats with a tune about an old man's lament on a park bench: "Where shall I go, where shall I go, I'm too young for heaven, now where shall I go?"

Staines is folksy without tripping over his boots, and literate without showing off. He is what every singer-songwriter ought to be -- real.

He's a fine storyteller, too. Just before intermission of his 25-song set, he told a tale about a dog and a rabbit that seemed to be headed somewhere familiar but delighted the audience with an O. Henry ending.

Staines projected a sort of zen humor, though he might scoff at such an esoteric description. Early tuning trouble prompted him to say, "Sometimes you buy a new set of strings and you find a whole note you want left out of them."

One of Staines' gifts is the ability to breathe oxygen into aural portraits of mining towns or truckers' lives. When the songs end you have the feeling you've been where he's been, if only for a few minutes.

He can make you empathize with the loneliness of a coyote, and feel his love for his child ("Child of Mine.)"

Staines yodeled some, and he started toes tapping with a western swing number dedicated to Riders in the Sky's Ranger Doug. He sang a funny song about black flies and a love song in which he was "trying to picture everything I know of you."

"Roseville Fair," one of Staines' best-known songs, had an amber quality, as if his voice had rubbed smooth every edge over the years.

"River," another Staines favorite, was another gem. And "Early Morning Rain," a folk standard, was billed as the song that made him want to go on the road more than a quarter century ago. He treated it like an old friend, much as he treated the audience.