LIVERMORE FALLS — The music comes to songwriter Phil Poirier as he is playing chords on his guitar. The melody and the rhythm come as he is singing syllables. Then the words start to flow.

“It’s what comes to me,” Poirier, 59, of Livermore Falls, said.

He has been working on his third CD titled Counting Blessings since last summer with help from musicians, including guitarist and drummer Pat Malia, bassist Mike Burd, violinist Susan Ramsey and drummer Tom Hines, and sound engineer Ted St. Pierre.

Poirier has been a musician since college in the early 1970s when he played in bands. He is also an artist, photographer and Web designer.

“I’ve been more of a songwriter for the last 15 years,” Poirier said.

He describes his music as contemporary folk but it has a pop-folk sensibility to it, too. It is hook-driven, meaning hooks in the melody catch you, he said.

When he was a kid, Poirier said, he fantasized about playing in front of a crowd. But when he grew up he was an artist.

In 2001, he started changing direction to focus on other aspects of his natural talents.

“I had to make a career shift, an identity shift as well,” he said, about nine years ago.

He moved to Livermore Falls from Portland in 2004 and started focusing more on his music.

“The recording process is a positive feedback loop,” he said.

The more he records, the more it keeps him in the process to write. He wouldn’t mind someone else playing the songs he writes, he said.

“I’m focused more on selling the songs than CDs,” Poirier said. “I consider myself a songwriter first but I don’t see myself as a star headliner. I would love to hear the songs coming over the radio one way or another.”

He’s written about 90 songs.

“I’m totally self-trained in music,” he said. “I have enough material right now to do another CD and the songs keep coming. It’s not every day but when I work they seem to come. ”

He is having a custom guitar made by Steve Ryder whose website is sjryder.com.

“I play a right-handed guitar left handed. So my new guitar will reflect how I play,” Poirier said.

He performs his music at coffee houses, outdoor events and concerts.

He will play a concert to benefit the rebuilding of the barn at Washburn-Norlands Living History Center in Livermore. The concert will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, at Otis Ventures LLC, downstairs at the Otis Mill Complex at 1 Mill St. in Jay. Suggested donation of $5.

He is also scheduled to perform another benefit concert for a local church to buy stovepipes and metal parts to help build fuel-efficient, adobe stoves in Honduras. That concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, at Nordica Auditorium at the University of Maine at Farmington, Merrill Hall at Main Street and Academy streets in Farmington.

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