Don White

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capita) ratio, and White — a no-nonsense folksinger from the Boston area with a workingman's sensibility — got himself a nice laugh. He proceeded to make good on his promise, offering up song after song about the joys, annoyances, embarrassments, thrills, and fulfillments of family life.

A self-described "chord hack," White doesn't try to wow anyone with guitar wizardry. Instead, his act is about homespun truth and spot-on timing. He's a confessional songwriter, recounting his own foibles — and those of his (assuredly sainted) wife and kids — with wide-eyed openness. He's the kind of writer who can take a split-second moment in his life (like a look his wife gives him when he's splayed out on the sofa with the dog) and turn it into a five-minute musical epic.

Compact, swarthy, ponytailed, and seemingly fearless, White would definitely be a tough dad for the typical hapless American teenager. (At one point he snarled, "And I told her, 'If you don't start treating me like a human being, I'm going to get a job playing folk music at the mall!'" Other dads might say things like this — but one has the sense that Don White would not hesitate to act on the threat.) And, indeed, dealing with his kids took front and center during White's set.