Noted musician curtails live show schedule, but local venue has special place in his heart

After performing all over the world, Peter Mulvey knows the value of a good venue.  That’s why the Spire Center in Plymouth holds a special place in his heart.

“I’ve played a lot in Europe,” said Mulvey by phone from his western Massachusetts home, “and in a general sense, I wish the United States was as good as Europe is at funding these little arts centers. But New England is, hands down, the best infrastructure anywhere for supporting the arts and these kinds of centers. The Spire Center is a favorite, because I played there when they first started, and I’m back there every year, and for sound, and comfort, and the way they make you feel, it’s a gem of a venue.”

Mulvey is playing Thursday, April 11, in the Spire Center’s Lobby Series, the intimate 70-person capacity series that runs most Thursdays, with music beginning at 8 p.m., and tickets for this show $25. The Spire Center is located at 25½ Court St in Plymouth. Check Spirecenter.org or call 508-746-4488 for more information.

Mulvey, a Milwaukee native who came to Boston when he got serious about a music career, writes and performs music that is typically considered folk, but elements of rock and jazz also factor into the mix. He’s released 23 albums since his 1992 debut record, and knows what makes a good venue. Heck, as an unknown but persistent young troubadour, he spent many hours honing his craft in the Boston subway system.

Subway was a preferred concert hall

“It sounds crazy, but playing in the subways was great,” said Mulvey with a laugh. “After rush hour was the best. Rush hours were tough, with people surging in and out and always in a hurry. But by 9:30 in the morning, after this big rush hour push, you’d get silence, just people waiting maybe 12 minutes for the next train. I could get in two or three songs before they left on the next train. Beyond rush hour, people were just walking and waiting, and it was a much more relaxed atmosphere. With those little 12-minute segments, I could play like five or six gigs per hour and do it hour after hour. It was like ‘Groundhog Day,’ a new audience every 10 minutes, and a great way to work on your performance skills.”

“I paid my rent that way, on the subway, for a couple years, and it was an incredibly happy time in my life,” Mulvey added. “There was nothing concrete on my horizon at that point, and it was all about playing music for strangers every day, but it was an invaluable learning experience.”

Songs that tell a story

Mulvey’s songwriting has evolved through several aspects through the years, with a striking storytelling foundation, but also a polished skill for subtly having deeper philosophical issues just below the surface. Personally, I always loved his 2006 album, “The Knuckleball Suite,” for its cast of characters. Many fans point to “Vlad the Astrophysicist,” an entertaining spoken-word song that simply examines our place in the universe with charm and wit. In recent years, he’s collaborated with SistaStrings, the stellar acoustic musicians Chauntee and Monique Ross, who lend his music an almost classical majesty.

“I got to know SistaStrings simply through the Milwaukee connection,” said Mulvey. “I grew up there, and then had gone back and lived there up until six years ago. They are Milwaukeeans and had played at my brother’s Unitarian church. I had seen them on gigs around the Midwest, and so we recorded a couple of albums together during the pandemic. Subsequently, they toured with Ally Russell, of the Birds of Chicago, and through that they ended up in Brandi Carlile’s band for her last tour. It has been delightful to see them become ‘overnight sensations,’ because like most such stories, I know they’ve been out there busting their butts for the last 10 years.”

Pandemic forces a new reality for Mulvey

The pandemic’s enforced idleness pointed up the new reality for musicians, even well-traveled veterans like Mulvey. Records don’t pay the bills any longer, no matter how brilliant, and performing is where musicians have to make a living.

“The sad thing is nobody buys records these days, and streaming doesn’t pay much,” Mulvey noted. “Working musicians these days are just members of the middle class, watching their wages get hollowed out like everyone else. Even with the career that I’ve built, I need to get out and play in front of my fellow human beings. Those pandemic-era online shows were better than nothing, but there’s really no substitute for live music. During that pandemic summer, I was playing shows in people’s driveways, but that’s what we had to do and it worked.”

Mulvey continues to write new material, and has multiple future albums on tap.

Mulvey working on a few albums

“I’ve got three more albums I’m working on right now,” he said. “I’ve definitely always written a great deal, and I find it interesting to try and find collections of songs that work together. I might do an album of songs about time, or mortality, astrophysics, romantic breakups, or just life’s twists and turns.”

One future project Boston area fans will love is a spring tour with venerable acoustic blues master Chris Smither, of Arlington.  That combo performs at the Narrows Center in Fall River on May 17, and then on May 18 at City Winery in Boston.

“Chris took me under his wing 25 years ago, and I’ve opened shows for him all over the world,” Mulvey explained. “Chris took me to the West Coast, and also Europe for the first time when I was starting out, so he’s been a real mentor to me and I’m very grateful to have him as my friend. I met him when I was 24 and he was 49, and so that means he’s about to celebrate his 80th birthday, which seems impossible. But the dude can still outrun me, on or offstage – he’s bionic!”

Mulvey’s songwriting wit might sometimes raise hackles, such as his ode to rich doofuses spending their excess billions, “(Bleeps) in Space,” or his seemingly quite logical “Jesus Wants to Take Your Guns Away,” but he is undeterred.

“I have been asked to leave Oklahoma and Florida for songs that I’ve done,” Mulvey admitted. “But most responses haven’t been that extreme, but more like ‘thanks, no thanks.’

Family life has prompted Mulvey to cut back his travel, but Boston-area fans can see him as much as ever.

“With a toddler at home now, I’m tamping down my touring schedule,” Mulvey said. “But I still do five nights at Club Passim, and in the springtime do all the satellite coffeehouses around Boston, so I probably average 10 shows around Boston every year. And we try to make sure the Spire Center is always one of those dates.”

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Peter Mulvey is always happy to play at the Spire Center in Plymouth