Singer Returns to Folk Roots : * Music: Steve Gillette has come full circle after decades of riding the highs and lows of pop songwriting.

From our everybody-dance-now perspective, it’s hard to imagine that folk music once was a major tributary of the pop mainstream. Then, in the mid-’60s, the British invasion and a plugged-in Bob Dylan drove folk to the outskirts of the music industry, where, ever since, it has been nurtured by the gentle purists who are its traditional guardians.

A similar divergence describes the career of singer-songwriter Steve Gillette, who began in the ‘50s as a folkie, tasted pop success in the ‘60s, fell on lean times in the ‘70s, and worked his way back to his folk roots in the mid-’80s.

Gillette and his wife and co-performer, Cindy Mangsen, are currently touring Southern California. They will perform Friday at Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church in Vista.

Speaking by phone earlier this week from his parents’ home in Orange County, the affable Gillette, 49, described his scuffling days as a songwriter and his serendipitous rediscovery of a folk scene he’d thought long dormant.

“I came out of what Tom Paxton called the ‘folk music scare of the ‘50s,’ ” Gillette said, laughing. “I was raised in Whittier, and in high school I played guitar and banjo and was a big fan of Joan Baez, Judy Collins and the Kingston Trio. My songwriting was a natural extension of playing that kind of music at home and with my friends.

“In the early ‘60s, there were a lot of coffeehouses, and I got my start singing at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach on open-mike nights--we called them ‘hoots,’ ” he said. “That’s where I met a lot of artists who also were just beginning--Linda Ronstadt, Steve Martin, Jennifer Warnes. I was the regular opening act at a time when performers worked a place for four or five nights, so I really got to hang out with them.”

While playing at campuses and clubs along the coast, Gillette shared the stage with other promising aspirants, including a shy youngster named Jackson Browne and a recently transplanted Texan named John Deutschendorf. In 1966, Gillette opened some shows for the Canadian duo Ian and Sylvia, who took the songwriter on the road with them. That same year, they became the first recording act to record one of his songs, “Darcy Farrow.”

But Gillette got his biggest break when he was introduced to New York song publisher Milt Okun by Deutschendorf, who by then had changed his name to John Denver and was performing in New York with the Chad Mitchell Trio. Okun placed Gillette’s song, “Back on the Street Again,” with a vocal group called the Sunshine Company, who recorded it in 1967 in the pop-folk style of the Mamas and the Papas or Spanky and Our Gang. The single became a Top 40 hit, and Gillette found himself gravitating toward this more lucrative field of pop.

In 1968, Gillette’s self-titled debut album was released on the then-prestigious Vanguard label. After touring the country, he bought a house in Newport Beach and prepared for the songwriting success that seemed imminent. He soon learned how difficult it is to land a follow-up hit.

“That Sunshine Company hit gave me credibility as a songwriter, but I tried so hard to live up to the industry’s standards of hit songwriting that I got farther and farther away from my own instincts,” Gillette said. “Linda (Ronstadt) recorded six of my songs (including ‘Back on the Street Again’) on her early albums, and John Denver recorded ‘Darcy Farrow’ and ‘Sweet Melinda,’ but I wasn’t able to land that big hit that seemed so important to me at the time.”

Gillette eventually moved to the Hollywood hills to get closer to the record business, but in time that proximity only magnified his growing frustration. In the mid-’70s, Graham Nash offered to produce an album for Gillette, then got so busy with his other endeavors that the project languished for several years before being released on an independent label.

By 1979, a financially strapped Gillette had resorted to singing other people’s music on the Southern California club circuit. Five years later, Gillette agreed to judge a songwriting competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and the experience turned his life around.

“I’d thought that folk music had disappeared, but it was me who’d gone away,” he said. “Hearing all these people singing songs with lyrics that really meant something to them woke me up, and I’ve been traveling and performing in those circles ever since.

“In recent years, several country artists have recorded my songs,” Gillette said, “which made me realize that, in some ways, country has taken the place that folk once had in the market. Songs that have stories and characters seem to find a home these days with guys like Waylon Jennings and Don Williams, who, by the way, used to be the lead singer in (‘60s folk group) the Pozo Seco Singers.”

Gillette still receives royalties from “Back on the Street Again,” although he claims they’ve “trickled down to very, very small checks.” And, in spite of his renewed allegiance to folk, he still listens to pop, but from a different perspective.

“I’m especially happy for the success of a few old friends, like Bonnie Raitt,” he said. “It’s encouraging to know that you can still do the music we all grew up with and love, without having to do the disco thing or whatever. But what I find is that the folk music community that Cindy and I are a part of is much more conducive to remaining true to one’s music and ideals. Their kind of support is important for the sake of maintaining your sanity--especially as we become older, more mature people who prefer to deal with real-life issues in our songs.

“I maintain that there are two kinds of audiences,” he said, warming to the subject. “One genuinely seeks to be conscious, aware and enlightened, and the other seeks sensationalism, spectacle, fantasy, thrills and narcosis. The big money, of course, follows the latter, which I liken to the junk-food syndrome, in which the salty, sugary things are the basis of the marketplace. And yet, I admit that I still have a certain vulnerability to that syndrome.”

Gillette would love to have a hit, would love to see one of his songs at No. 1 on the charts. He has a song on the new Kenny Rogers album, and there’s a chance it will be Rogers’ next single.

“As we speak, I’m crossing my fingers, hoping it will be,” Gillette said. “But, at the same time, I know that there’s something healthier, more nourishing, more circumspect about continuing to do what we do on a smaller scale, without all the glamour.”

Mangsen never lost sight of that fact. A singer critically acclaimed for her interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk ballads, she had been performing for more than a decade when she met Gillette a few years ago. The two, who live in Vermont, recently released an album, “Live in Concert,” that showcases what one critic called a “pairing of voices that is near-perfect in phrasing, blend and general good feelings.”

“When we first met, we definitely had to adjust to each other musically,” she said. “I think I reminded Steve of why he started doing this in the first place. And I hadn’t been influenced by the country or pop sides of things, so I’ve learned a lot from him, too.”

Mangsen said the two will perform about half of Friday’s show together, then each will be featured on four or five songs. She also confided that she’s becoming more directly involved in the “family trade.”

“Steve’s starting to play fiddle, so he’s backing me on some of the ballads,” she said. “But it’s nice to maintain some of what we used to do separately, especially now that I’m beginning to write songs myself. I was a librarian before I became a professional singer. I still read a lot of books, and I find that stories inspire songs. For me, this is a whole new means of self-expression.”

* Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church, 1600 Buena Vista Drive, Vista. An Orange County duo, Margie and Greg Mirken, will open the concert. Tickets are $10 at the door (no advance sales). Call 943-1141.