Channeling a hard-living troubadour

Loudon Wainwright III first became a fan of Charlie Poole, the old-time banjo player and country singer who died in 1931 at age 39, back in the 1970s. In the liner notes to his new double disc,

High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

, Wainwright recalls his immediate reaction: "What a singer! More than that - what a presence!"

Back then, Wainwright, who plays the Keswick Theatre in Glenside tonight, identified strongly with the hard-drinking, wise-cracking North Carolina troubadour. So much so, he said, talking on the phone from his home in Suffolk Country, New York, that "I harbored a fantasy for a while that I would star in a movie about him."

That never came to pass, but in 2005, Sony released the boxed set You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music, and Wainwright's friend Dick Connette came up with the idea for Wainwright to record an album of Poole's songs, plus write a bunch of new ones that explored the itinerant entertainer's life.

Poole wasn't a writer himself, "but he was one of those artists that was such a distinctive singer and performer that he made the songs his own," Wainwright says. The title tune for High Wide & Handsome, written by Wainwright, comes from an expression often used by the songwriter's mother, who grew up in Georgia.

"I was watching an old Clark Gable movie, and he said it," says the 63-year-old songwriter. "And there's a John Denver song called 'High, Wide and Handsome.' That worried me, when I heard that.

"When I wrote that song, I was imagining the Poole bravado, in contrast with his self-destructive tendencies. I could see him being all liquored up and telling everybody, 'I'm going out high, wide and handsome.' "

Doing Poole's songs, like the boast "I'm the Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World" and "The Deal," which sold more than 100,000 78s in 1925 and earned Poole and his band mates all of $75 ("There's not much new under the sun when it comes to the music business," Wainwright says), was a welcome change of pace for the father of singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

"It was fun to just mostly be a singer," he says.

"Most of my albums are about 'Welcome to the world of Loudon Wainwright - again.' It was a relief to get the hell out of there for a while. I mean, I'll be back there soon."

At the Keswick, where Wainwright is sharing a bill with Hot Tuna, he won't be doing just Poole tunes. He's also written a number of topical titles like "Times Is Hard," "Cash for Clunkers" and "Fear Itself."

"I'm calling them 'Songs for the New Depression.' It's been a fun thing to write about. It's a bit like the movie The Producers. I'm hoping things don't get better too soon."

Besides singing, Wainwright also acts. He's shown up in a couple episodes of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation.

"My character is called Crazy Barry. The town lunatic. It was a stretch," he deadpans. Getting acting jobs, though, is a matter of "hoping and praying the phone will ring. But fortunately, I have folk music to fall back on."