Christine Lavin and Don White to Perform in Centerport

Christine Lavin and Don White are bringing a night of comedy with their show, “The Funny Side of the Street,” Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Congregational Church of Huntington.

The show is presented by the Folk Music Society of Huntington.

The veteran performers have brought clean musical comedy to audiences across the country since 2008.

Since emerging from the New York City singer-songwriter scene in the late 1980s – along with Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka, and more – Lavin remains a popular and respected performer in the genre.

Lavin also champions artists, with Don White is the latest example.

“He’s such an original,“ she said. “I call him sometimes a ‘blue collar intellectual.’”

“Don has extremely high standards when it comes to what he does onstage,” she added. “And he hits a grand slam every time. The first time we worked together he opened for me, and it’s the only time in my entire career that I opened with a ballad because he was so funny, the audience was so laughed out.”

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A product of the Boston arts scene of the 1990s, White developed his songwriter-performer chops in the same Club Passim/ Olde Vienna Kaffehaus scene that produced Dar Williams, Martin Sexton, Lori McKenna and Vance Gilbert. He was also a regular comedian at the legendary Catch a Rising Star in Harvard Square in Cambridge, honing his comedic skills alongside Jimmy Tingle, David Cross, Wendy Leibman and a host of other cutting edge comics of the time. These experiences along with his immersion in the Boston spoken word scene that produced the National Poetry Slam Championship Team in 1992, are evident in the comic’s wit, and a poet’s heart to his songs and stories.

“It doesn’t sound like a folk concert – it sounds like a comedy concert,” says White of his co-bills with Lavin.

“We rehearse and we rehearse and then inevitably, she’ll throw something at me that I have no idea about, with a mischievous grin that lets me know she’s been thinking about it all afternoon. Just to see what will happen,” he added. “And she’s taught me to do the same.”

If you go: The Congregational Church of Huntington is at 30 Washington Drive in Centerport. Tickets are $20. For more information, visit http://www.fmsh.org, or call 631-418-8548

Image: Christine Lavin and Don White in Concert/Facebook