A belated debut delights folk fans
His beard - once wiry, the color of copper, and in need of a good brushing - is white now, matching the nest of frizzy hair shooting out the sides of a snug baseball cap. But then, of course he looks different. That unruly beard suited Gary Higgins in 1973, back when the only clues about his appearance came from "Red Hash," his lone album that fell into obscurity until it was eventually hailed a lost classic of psychedelic folk.
A Connecticut native, Higgins is a cult singer-songwriter who, after finishing "Red Hash," promptly went to jail on drug charges for more than a year. His Boston debut Saturday night was a quiet affair and beyond belated: 34 years after the album was recorded and two years after Drag City reissued it to much acclaim.
Perhaps because that fanfare has died down, the Middle East Upstairs was a little more than half-full, giving it the intimate feel of a show strictly for fans. With eyes locked on Higgins, they sat in chairs and cross-legged on the floor to hear him sing all but two of the songs from "Red Hash."
If Higgins's appearance has changed, little about the songs has. For good reason: His full band featured musicians who played on "Red Hash," including bassist Dave Beaujon and keyboardist Terry Fenton, fleshed out by another guitarist and Higgins's pony-tailed son on acoustic and electric guitars. Higgins alternated between guitar (held to his waist by a yellow strap that read "Do Not Cross Police Line") and drums.
Their note-for-note resurrection of the album was stunningly evergreen. "Thicker Than a Smokey," flush with the strident strum of three acoustic guitars, was still the best song David Crosby never wrote. And Higgins's voice, once lilting and sunkissed, now cuts a little deeper with a slight rasp on high notes. The only remnants of '70s folk (and sometimes '80s soft rock) came courtesy of Fenton's keyboard synths that probably meant to sound ambient and ghostly but instead rendered a few songs, including "Telegraph Towers," woefully artificial and dated.
A new song, "Ten-Speed," hinted that Higgins is writing again and might even have material for a new album. This one would fit comfortably in his psych-folk catalog: "She came to me on a ten-speed/ She came to me on a centipede."
If this performance was a momentous occasion (and it was), Higgins certainly didn't let on. With his modest farewell - "Thanks, we had a great time" - Gary Higgins had come and gone just like his only album was released: hauntingly, under the radar, and seemingly out of nowhere.
James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com. 