Tom Rush has earned a permanent spot in the American folk pantheon. Born in Portsmouth in 1941, he began performing and recording in Boston in the early 1960s and became a key figure in the folk revival movement. His 1968 album “The Circle Game” introduced listeners to the songs of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and James Taylor, and, as Rolling Stone has pointed out, helped usher in the singer-songwriter era.

He’s continued touring and recording in the intervening decades, releasing his latest album, “What I Know,” in 2009. He’s also made recent appearances on national public radio, including on “American Routes,” “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Here and Now.”

Although he currently lives just across the border in Vermont, Rush has spent most of his life in New Hampshire. On Thursday, June 23, he’ll kick off the Prescott Park Arts Festival’s 2011 concert series. Rush recently spoke to The Wire about the songs that have defined his long and storied career.

You’ve played the Prescott Park Arts Festival once before, in 2009, although you didn’t have the best of luck with the weather. It was actually kind of a special occasion. I showed up expecting to play for thousands and thousands of people, and it was raining. I was told we could cancel the show—we better cancel the show—because the stage wasn’t covered. There were about, I don’t know, six or eight really soggy people sitting out there and I figured, I can’t just cancel. So I said, ‘Well, bring those folks into the tent.’ They have this great big tent they use for a dressing area... So they went around and scattered up an amplifier, a guitar amp I could use as a PA system, and hooked up a microphone. And by the time all that was done there were maybe 50 people in the tent. So I started singing and figured maybe I’d do three or four or five songs. By the time I’d sang four or five songs there were probably 200 people in the tent with another hundred hanging around outside. And so I kept going, and I did almost a whole show. And I think those folks remember it because it was so different from what they expected. 

You launched your career close to 50 years ago in Boston. Can you describe what the music scene was like there when you were starting out in the early 1960s? The Boston/Cambridge scene was an amateur scene, in a positive sense of the word. These were people playing for the love of the music, not for the career potential. New York was different. New York, everybody wanted to get matching shirts and go on the road. But Boston was just a mix of typewriter repairmen and psycho-pharmacologists and students who were all just playing for the fun of it. A few of us went on to become professionals, but most didn’t because they never intended to. That wasn’t their goal. Their goal was to have some fun with music. So it was a very music-centered scene, as opposed to showbiz-centered.

Well, you’re one of the folks who did become a professional, and you’re often credited with helping to spearhead the singer-songwriter era. Did you feel at the time like you were actually starting a movement? Spearheading? No. I do remember, though, going back to the early ’60s in Cambridge, I had a feeling that this was really something special. Every day was, in fact, extraordinary. And, looking back, I think most of us agree that that in fact was the case. In terms of spearheading the singer-songwriter era, no, I was just looking for songs. I was a couple years over deadline on my next album for Elektra, and I was looking, looking, looking for more songs. And along came Joni, Jackson and James, just about the same time, with these marvelous songs that sounded kind of folky but weren’t. So it wasn’t a leap off the edge of the world for me to do these songs, and I just loved the songs. They were these goosebump songs, every single one of them. So I put them on the album that ended up being called “The Circle Game,” after Joni’s song. I think because those three artists were all represented on the same album, it attracted attention. If it had been three different albums that introduced them separately it might have snuck under the radar. But the fact that three of these dazzling writers were being represented for the first time on the same project, it really got people to stand up and take notice. 

Since then you’ve helped other great musicians get their start, like Shawn Colvin (who will be at Prescott Park July 13). Does it remain a mission of yours to help young musicians get their careers off the ground? Again, I’m gonna demur. I don’t think it was really a mission, although sometimes it worked out well that way. But Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith, people that I introduced into my Club 47 concerts—I took the name of the coffee house that I called home back in the early ’60s and made it into a concert series, and the concept of the concert series was to mix established artists with these up-and-comers. And the reason, frankly, was very self-serving. I didn’t want to put out a nostalgia package, and that’s what it would have been if I’d just put out Judy Collins and Richie Havens and myself and a couple of others from our era. It would have been a nostalgia package, and I hate nostalgia. But, if you put a couple of kids on the package, then all of a sudden nostalgia goes out the window. It’s not a relevant concept anymore. I put together artists that were musically compatible, so if I had Bonnie Raitt on the package, I’d try to find up and coming blues people, and if I had Emmylou Harris, I’d look for country-ish kinds of artists. And then I’d try to browbeat them into playing and singing with one another and doing stuff that wasn’t part of their regular show, and it made for shows that were really, really interesting and musically innovative, at least from the artists’ perspective, because you were out there doing stuff you’d never done before and would probably never do again. 

You’ve also had your own songs covered and reinterpreted by a diverse array of musicians. What’s it like for you having your songs performed by other artists and hearing different takes on them? It’s fascinating. “No Regrets” is the one that’s been recorded the most by different artists. U2 did a piece of it—not the whole song, but they tacked the chorus on to another song they were doing. And there’s been a heavy metal version and a hip-hop version. It’s fascinating to me how many different ways you can do a song. And of course I take great joy in that, because I love doing that, too. I love taking somebody else’s song and trying to think of a different way to do it, because then people hear it for the first time. They hear it as though it were a new song if you can take it out of its usual context and put it in a different kind of setting.

You were recently on “Here and Now” talking about and performing “Child’s Song.” It was pretty touching—host Robin Young got a little bit weepy. What does it feel like to get such an emotional response when you play a song? Well, I think it’s what you’re after, isn’t it? You want to get some kind of response, even if it’s rage and disgust. The worst thing that can happen is for them to say, “Eh, I don’t care.” But that song, in particular, written by Murray McLauchlan, a Canadian friend, I think is one of the finest tunes ever written because it’s so honest. It’s striking to me, actually, how few other artists have done it, and I think it’s because it’s a very difficult song to record. The version that ended up on my Columbia album that contained it, I think was take 93. We recorded it like eight or 10 times a day for over a week. Finally, David Bromberg actually came in, and we put him in a booth and he played along with me. And we didn’t end up using Bromberg’s track, but it elicited the performance from me that we’d been after, so that’s the one we used. Anyway, it’s a great song, and I’d probably be upset if nobody in the audience burst into tears.

What other songs have remained staples of your set list over the years? One of the nice things about having been around this long is I’ve got quite a long repertoire list and I can rotate songs around. If I get tired of a song I can drop it for a while and replace it with something else. I think “No Regrets” is a song of mine that’s stayed in the repertoire. I’ve either done Joni’s “Circle Game” or “Urge for Going,” not both, in virtually every show I’ve done. 

What qualities does a song need to have in order to endure and have equal resonance whether it’s played in 1970 or 2011? I think it has to speak some kind of truth to you. It can be a funny truth, it can be a sad truth, it can be an erotic truth, but it’s got to have some resonance. It’s got to reach down into you and grab something.

You recently wrote your first ever kids’ song, “The Fish Story.” What inspired you now, after all these years, to write a kids’ song? Absolutely nothing inspired me. It completely blindsided me. I have no idea where it came from or why. It just sort of popped out. And it’s another song that’s kind of taking on a life of its own. People seem to love it. Kids like it, but more importantly, the grownups who actually buy CDs and coloring books like it. I made a coloring book to go along with it. It’s now out of print. But a fellow showed up who said he wanted to make a video of it, which we shot last week with a bunch of kids, and we’ll see where that goes. But someday there will be a DVD and possibly a book to go along with that song. 

Have you found that your songwriting style and performing style have changed much over the years, or do you take the same basic approach that you did in the ’60s and ’70s? I think fundamentally it’s the same approach. I hope I’ve gotten better at it. It’d be sad if I haven’t. But, you know, I started out as a solo act and gradually built up a band, and the band members changed and the bands changed over the years, and now I’m back solo again for most shows, although I will have a fellow named Joe Mennonna with me playing keyboards and saxophone and singing harmonies at Prescott Park—a fabulous talent. 

Do you feel like your upbringing and your life in this particular corner of the world has affected the way you write songs and play music? I’m sure it has, but I’m probably too close to that to be very analytic about it. By the way, I was born in Portsmouth, and I’m a little ticked off they still haven’t put up a statue. I might have to do it myself, come in under cover of night, erect a statue and see how long it takes people to figure out it’s a fraud.

Are you writing much new material these days? You know, I should be. “The Fish Song” kind of popped out. I’ve got maybe 20 songs that are in various stages of completion, but lately life has just gotten too busy. The only way I can write is if I sit down every morning and stare at the guitar for a couple of hours. If I have the discipline to do that, songs happen. But, I’ve got a kid that I’ve got to get off to school, and then I’ve got stuff to do, interviews. I don’t mean to make you feel guilty.

Well, on that note I’ll let you go. But, finally, what can folks expect at Prescott Park? Great weather. Cool zephyrs blowing in from the southwest, an ocean breeze, perhaps. You know, I never quite know what I’m going to do until I get there. I’m very much looking forward to working with Joe Mennonna and playing for all the folks. I will try out some of the newer stuff, including “The Fish Song,” undoubtedly. 

The concert begins at 7 p.m. on June 23 at Prescott Park on Marcy Street in Portsmouth. There is a suggested donation of $8 to $10. Visit www.prescottpark.org.