enlarge Courtesy photo

Martin Sexton is legendary for his solo shows, where he holds nothing back – as he tends to do on six-gigs-a-week tours. Sexton blends folk, country, rock, blues, soul, gospel and R&B.

IF YOU GO: MARTIN SEXTON

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Stone Mountain Arts Center, Brownfield

TICKETS: Sold out

WHEN: 7:30 Saturday

WHERE: The Strand Theatre, 345 Main St., Rockland

TICKETS: $25, general admission; www.rocklandstrand.com or 594-0070

Thanks to luck and circumstance, Portland has been a portal to the career of Martin Sexton.

A native of Syracuse, N.Y., Sexton moved to the Boston area and established himself as a busker on the streets of Harvard Square. An early demo cassette, "In the Journey," sold more than 20,000 copies, bringing him attention and praise at the Boston Music Awards -- and gigs throughout the Northeast and New England.

Sexton was a regular in Portland back in the 1990s when he began his ascent. He performed regularly at the former Raoul's, out on Forest Avenue. After Raoul's closed, and as Sexton became more popular, he moved up to the State Theater on Congress Street.

He's achieved mainstream success and released a series of CDs that have made him into a star of the contemporary folk scene. His last studio album was "Seeds," and a year ago he released a CD/DVD set called "Solo."

Known for possessing an amazingly dextrous voice, Sexton blends folk, country, rock, blues, soul, gospel and R&B into his music. Sexton, who now lives in western Massachusetts, isn't touring much, because he is writing songs for his next CD, which he hopes to release in April.

But he is picking up a handful of dates here and there, and will be in Maine this weekend for solo club shows on Saturday at the Strand Theatre in Rockland and Sunday at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield.

The Brownfield show is sold out; tickets remain for the Saturday show in Rockland.

"It's just going to be me and my guitar showing up, just like the old days," Sexton said by phone. "No bus. No band. No tons of gear. And it's not far away, either. I can get there in a few hours, show up and do my thing."

Sexton's "thing" is legendary at these one-off solo shows. When he is out with the band and playing six nights a week, he tends to hold back to save his voice. He has to, because he always has a gig the next time.

But at these Maine shows, he's got nothing to save his voice for.

"I can leave it all on stage," he says.

That's the way it was all those years ago, when Sexton showed up at Raoul's, hung out with the locals and tore the place up.

"Back then, I used to get pretty violent with my acoustic guitar," Sexton said, recounting one night in the mid-1990s. "I remember that was the show where for the first time I broke the head of my old Gibson. I tend to get wacky with feedback, and I got a little Keith Moon on my guitar."

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at bkeyes@pressherald.com