John Sebastian has always been a storyteller, particularly in his live solo shows, which he’s been performing now for about 40 years.

Sebastian’s charming and engaging style of entertaining creates an immediate connection with his audience as he mixes interesting anecdotes from his career with a type of humor that is so easy to relate to, especially for his contemporaries as he puts it.

Sebastian was at his best on Friday night at the Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk, Connecticut, threading a narrative throughout his performance that started with his upbringing in Greenwich Village through his formative days with the Lovin’ Spoonful, who enjoyed tremendous success on the singles charts and produced a string of memorable albums in the mid-to-late 1960s.

Before moving on to Sebastian’s set, I have to note the venue, which is quite remarkable in this day and age of mega-stars and large arena rock. Infinity, at one time a supermarket, is on the main street in Norfolk, Route 44. After renovation, it now houses a beautiful bistro at street level with a box office, waiting area and small bar off to the side of the restaurant.

Up a long flight of stairs you find the music hall, which is in a large room with a ceiling perhaps 50 feet high, if not higher, above a small proscenium stage framed in an ornate arch.

The walls and floors are natural wood. The seating, which on the orchestra level looks to be about 250, consists of new wooden chairs with red velvet cushions, every seat close to the stage. You’re practically on top of the performer if you sit in the first few rows. Wonderful. If you want to go posh, you can sit high up in the balcony, at a much pricier cost, and have you’re own table where you can eat and drink all night.

The sound for a solo performer is exquisite. As Sebastian noted during his set, it’s nice to play a place that was made for music.

For most of the evening, Sebastian played a Heritage Eagle acoustic-electric archtop guitar employing a thumb pick and using his fingers to produce a style that’s a mix of jug band, country blues and folk. His playing is proficient and he doesn’t miss any of the musical queues of his repertoire, which consists of his classic Spoonful songs, traditionals and some covers.

Two songs into his set he starts to weave his narrative in between almost every song with a tale of growing up in New York and forming the Spoonful after playing in the Even Dozen Jug Band. He remembers how much he liked the chord changes to Martha & The Vandellas Heat Wave, a huge early ’60s hit, and found that if he just played them twice as fast he could come up with his own song, Do You Believe In Magic, the Spoonful’s first hit that evoked a roar from the Infinity crowd, which was highly responsive all night.

He tells stories about his infatuation during his jug band days with the singer Maria Muldaur, then Maria D’Amato, his comical encounter at the Gaslight with his biggest inspiration Mississippi John Hurt and how he and Zal Yanovsky, the Spoonful’s guitarist, were blown away in the lounge of a Holiday Inn in Nashville by an incredible young guitar picker, who turned out to be virtuoso Danny Gatton, and were prompted to write Nashville Cats, which he performed near the end of his set.

He played many of the memorable Spoonful hits: You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice, Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?, Darling Be Home Soon, the album track Younger Girl and he closed with the No. 1 hit Daydream, which drew an estatic response. He encourages his audiences to sing along, call and answer and even whistle along in response on Daydream.

Sebastian also played a number of tunes from his album with mandolin player extraordinaire David Grisman, the title cut I’m Satisfied, a John Hurt tune, two self-penned songs, Strings Of Your Heart and Passing Fantasy, and an instrumental version of Sonny Curtis’ Walk Right Back, an Everly Brothers top 10 hit.

Sebastian’s voice is a bit rougher around the edges these days as he sings everything in a lower register because of vocal problems he’s endured, but he’s able to sing all his tunes from a whisper to a growl and carries them off without a hitch.

A delightful performance on a delightful evening in an inspiring setting that is a throwback to more intimate times in popular music. Hard to ask for more.