Remember Tom Rush?

Tom Rush is finally headed back to Minneapolis, and that's great news for fans of American popular song. How long has it been since the New Hampshire native played the Twin Cities? Twenty-five years? Thirty? Why such a long drought? The New England acoustic legend, a mainstay of the Boston scene during the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s, is foggy about the date.

"I think I last performed at the Guthrie Theater," Rush said. "The real question isn't why have I avoided Minnesota for so long. It's rather why somebody out there didn't hire me. I have to get the call, you understand."

He chuckled. "Maybe it's the beginning of a run," he said of his gig tonight at Cedar Cultural Center.

Rush, 68, has already had a great run on the national scene. He emerged as a credible, crafty Harvard bluesman, recording cult hit LPs while still in school studying English literature. A bit later, he was the singer who introduced several seminal songwriters to the public at large, on classic Elektra and Columbia albums. With a casual, conversational baritone delivery that's proven timeless, he recorded gems by James Taylor ("Something in the Way She Moves"), Joni Mitchell ("The Circle Game," "Urge for Going") and Jackson Browne ("These Days"), in each case before they landed their own record deals.

Although never a driven careerist, and for nearly two decades living far from any hustle and bustle in Wyoming, Rush continues to pack East Coast clubs and concert halls. He quietly self-released a few live LPs but stayed out of recording studios for 35 years, until the February release of "What I Know." Produced by lifelong pal Jim Rooney, it features some mighty cool backup singers -- Bonnie Bramlett, Emmylou Harris and Nanci Griffith.

"I don't have any viable excuse for that recording layoff," Rush said, "except it was a lot quicker, easier and cheaper to do the live albums. But one of the cool things about working with Jim Rooney is that he won't let you fret too much -- he goes for feel, not cosmetic perfection. There's a surprising number of first takes on the CD. We did 15 tracks in five days, with another five days for mixing, minor overdubbing, and mastering. That was blinding speed, compared to what used to happen back in the '70s."

Rush's career also got an unlikely jolt when "The Remember Song," a wryly hilarious ditty about aging, became a YouTube sensation. The clip has been viewed nearly 4 million times.

"It's a marvelous thing," Rush said. "It's reminded a lot of lapsed fans that I'm still out there, still performing, traveling, doing good shows. And it's no doubt made me a few new partisans, though I'm sure 95 percent of the people don't know or care who the guy is that's singing. They just like the funny song, and e-mail it to their friends."

The medium may have changed, but Rush remains a great conduit for superior songs -- many moving, some salty, a few silly like "The Remember Song," and all featuring crafty guitar licks. Some are self-penned, most notably the oft-covered "No Regrets," which even U2 has featured in its recent sets. Few people deliver a memorable lyric better than Rush. That's just as true in 2009 as it was in 1968.