Peter Mulvey will perform Jan. 28

PRINCETON — Singer/songwriter Peter Mulvey will perform at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Princeton Coffeehouse.

Mulvey began as a self-described “city kid” from Milwaukee. He played, wrote and sang in bands while studying theatre at Marquette University. After graduating, he traveled to Ireland, where he learned the trade of busker on the streets of Dublin. A few years later, he settled in Boston, building an audience through street and subway performing, while also immersing himself in the thriving musical community.

Wisconsin is his home base these days. Still a traveling troubadour, Mulvey tours rigorously, year in and year out. For the last five years, he has done an annual performance tour entirely by bicycle. This past fall, equipped with bicycle, instruments and one human companion, he did shows in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Praise for Mulvey comes from afar: “... A phenomenal performer with huge energy, a quick fire, quirky take on life, and an extraordinary guitar style ... a joy to see,” (The Irish Times), and closer to home, “a voice lush and hushed that occasionally sinks into a whisper ...” (Rolling Stone).

Among Mulvey’s many albums are The Knuckleball Suite (2006), Kitchen Radio (2004) and Notes from Elsewhere (2007), a retrospective collection of the best songs he has written and performed over his almost 20-year music career. He has also released two Redbird albums, collaborations with musical soulmates Jeffrey Foucault, Kris Delmhorst and David Goodrich, who annually perform a four-night sell-out show at the Café Carp, in Ft. Atkinson, Wis.

Last year Mulvey released “Nine Days Wonder,” a collection of instrumental duets with multi-instrumentalist Goodrich. It includes eight original tunes, two traditional Americana pieces, two Hoagy Carmichael classics and a Tom Waits melody on the banjo.

“I’ve been listening to American music — old folk tunes, old jazz tunes and old rock ‘n’ roll tunes — for a long time,” Mulvey told the Corvallis (Oregon) Gazette Times, “and I guess I’m just taking whatever you can find in the past, from Duke Ellington to Willie Nelson to Tom Waits, and I’m playing things that live up to that. That’s all I’m trying to do, just like any other songwriter.”