WITCHSEASON BROKEDOWN

Perhaps an icon like Joe Boyd—Princeton native, American-expat record producer, and former owner of the Witchseason production company—is the sort of postwar music figure who only obsesses rock snobs (I envy not just his credits but his youthful apprenticeship on the folk scene as acolyte of promoter George Wein, too). Still, if the sum total of your knowledge of his key protégé Nick Drake extends solely to that benighted VW Cabrio advert, you might want to have a look in this evening. Whichever artist friends Boyd summons to bear witness tonight, just basking in his presence as one of the few remaining bona fide renaissance men is highly educational. Beginning with collecting blues LPs with childhood friend Geoff Muldaur, his life has been charmed and remarkable, yielding White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, which is one of the very best memoirs of the Love Generation. If you can scarcely imagine your days without sounds from a host of acts ranging from Drake, Fairport Convention, and the Incredible String Band, to Pink Floyd, Vashti Bunyan, and Toumani Diabaté, then be here now.

Thu., Nov. 20, 9:30 p.m., 2008