Singer and songwriter Vance Gilbert, will return for a concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at 6 On The Square. (Submitted Photo)

OXFORD – Singer and songwriter Vance Gilbert, one of the best performers on the folk scene today, has been playing in Oxford for more than 25 years, and will return for a concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at 6 On The Square.

For 30-plus years into his career, Gilbert’s influence can be felt all over the contemporary folk and Americana realm as he has helped pave the way for many of the BIPOC artists who have followed.

Gilbert was born and raised in the Philadelphia area. Hoping to be an R&B and jazz singer at college, he discovered his affinity for the storytelling sensibilities of an acoustic singer-songwriter. Word spread like wildfire about Gilbert's stage-owning singing and playing, and Shawn Colvin invited him to be special guest on her 1992 Fat City tour.

Noted as a performer whose songs tug at your heartstrings and onstage banter has you in stitches, Gilbert has recorded 14 albums, including five for Philo/Rounder Records. His latest album, "The Mother of Trouble,” features Grammy Award winner Lori McKenna on background vocals, Juno Award recipient and Bonnie Raitt Grammy hit song co-writer Joey Landreth on guitars, and Americana/roots master mandolinist Joe K. Walsh.

With four bullies, four deaths (three of them murders), three moms, two accidents, two Black people, two dogs, one dog ball, one gay kid, and one missed flight thanks to gas station sushi, the album benefits from the gifts of time and experience honing songwriting skills that find Gilbert at the top of the game.

Along with being opener of choice for artists as varied as Arlo Guthrie, Anita Baker, The Milk Carton Kids and Southside Johnny, the mid 2000s found Gilbert opening more than 150 shows for comedian George Carlin. Most recently, he’s been the opener of choice for “Mad About You”/“Stranger Things” star (and Binghamton University alumnus) Paul Reiser’s standup shows.

Gilbert has also been a prominent presence at some of the world’s most prestigious gatherings and halls, among them the Newport, Winnipeg, Rocky Mountain, Calgary, Ottawa and Falcon Ridge Folk festivals, the Kate Wolf Music Festival, and Australia’s Woodford Folk and Mullum Music Festivals, Mountain Stage, Boston's Symphony Hall, Nashville’s Lyman Auditorium and The Barns at Wolftrap.

In addition to songwriting and performing, Gilbert has been a voice coach all around the world, from Australia to Winnipeg, at all the festivals above plus The Kerrville and Rocky Mountain Song Schools. He is currently on staff as an instructor/professor at the University of Colorado -Denver and has done a decade’s worth of summer programs at the Berklee College of Music. He also does private coaching with six to 10 students weekly.

As the host of Vance’s Monday Night Acoustic Pajama Party, started on YouTube the first week of the pandemic in 2020, Gilbert has played a live, themed, weekly 90-minute shows of originals and cover tunes to a rotating following of about 200 fans. A percentage of his weekly tip jar is donated to a local nonprofit of his choice.

Learn more online at vancegilbert.com.

Tickets for the Nov. 18 show are $25; purchase online at 6onthesquare.org or call 607-843-OTS6 (6876) to make a reservation. Doors open one hour before the start of the performance. The show also will be streamed live online for $10; more information at 6onthesquare.org.

Ahead this fall, winter and spring are A Very, Very Cassie & Maggie Christmas (Dec. 17), Dead to the Core (Jan. 20), Seth Glier (Feb. 2), Abbie Gardner (March 9), Lucy Wainwright Roche (March 15), Cosy Sheridan & Sloan Wainwright (April 6), Tret Fure (April 27), Martyn Joseph (May 11) and The Black Feathers (June 22).

- Information from 6 On The Square