John Craigie’s live performances are legendary with hilarious stories in between captivating songs. Courtesy photo

Portland-based John Craigie has forged a unique place in contemporary folk music blending introspective songwriting with humorous storytelling. A modern-day troubadour, he has been compared to John Prine and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Craigie’s live performances are legendary, where he tells often hilarious stories in between captivating songs. An OffBeat magazine review noted: “His songs have big ideas, spirituality, heartbreak, and societal woes, but there’s a secret weapon in his arsenal. He’s got jokes.”

“I was always kind of a class clown, storytelling guy,” Craigie explained. “I started playing music right around 16, 17, but it was very serious at that time. I grew up in the mid-late 90s and I just didn’t think the two could be combined. I hadn’t heard Arlo Guthrie or Todd Snyder. I remember seeing guys like that and realizing, OK, I can do that.”

Besides his music, audiences just love that aspect of his performances. “I started to notice a change right away in the enjoyment level of my show, especially back then,” he continued. “My songs hadn’t really grown to be very good, so I thought it was nice to have that part of it. People really like that.”

His fans include Jack Johnson, who invited him on tour and sometimes covers his songs. “That was great,” he recalled. “It was really lovely to be able to be in this world, and I got to open for him, and then he would bring me out each night and do a song. He’s so kind, and he usually comes up when I play Oahu.”

In recent years Craigie has been acclaimed for his love of the Beatles. He will pick an album and develop a “Lonely” show around it. During 2026, he is entertaining Mainland folks with “Help! The Lonely Beatles For Sale” shows. Previous tours have included “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “The White Album Lonely,” and “John Craigie performs The Beatles Let It Be.”

He’s also released two live albums, “Lonely Revolver” and “Abbey Road Lonely,” with funny anecdotes like how George Harrison copped “Something” from James Taylor. “You’ve got John Craigie up here, but he’s doing Beatles songs, and he’s not doing them correctly,” he announced on “Lonely Revolver.”

“I’m a big Beatles’ nerd and back in 2017, I was excited about the 50th anniversary of ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ I really love that record. It’s a bit more of a songwriter’s album and even esoteric, kind of paving the way for things like Tom Waits and those kind of songwriters. I did a little show with ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and so that sort of became the tradition.”

One other covers project worthy of note, his brilliant “Paper Airplane,” featuring stripped-down blues versions of classic Led Zeppelin tunes like “Going to California” and “Immigrant Song.”

“I had learned ‘Going to California’ and I had learned some of the softer songs,” he said. “If you’re going to cover Zeppelin, you’re usually covering the big rock stuff. I wouldn’t sit here and tell you that these guys are like amazing, stripped-down songwriters. But I thought that these sound kind of cool, and I know they were pulling from a lot of British and American solo blues guys.”

Craigie’s albums with his own songs include “No Rain, No Rose,” “Scarecrow,” “Asterisk The Universe,” “Pagan Church” with Portland’s TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, and the just released “I Swam Here,” which he said, “it’s more chill than my last record. I’ve just been out touring it in Colorado for the first tour of the album release.”

Returning to the MACC on Saturday, Craigie said he loves live performing for “the storytelling and the chaos of you never really know how it’s going to go. You know if you have a nice crowd, and you just get out there and just play and don’t talk, they’re not going to clap at the end of every song. The only way to really find out if they’re enjoying it is if you throw that part into it, because laughter is not faked. I really like that. Each night of going out there with a little bit of uncertainty makes me excited.”

Solo Sessions: John Craigie with special guest Will Evans will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the MACC’s McCoy Studio Theater. Tickets are $39, $49, and $59.