Guitarist David Rawlings takes center stage in Santa Rosa

Deeply rooted in traditional American music, David Rawlings is known among musicians as a brilliant songwriter, guitar player and record producer.

You may not have heard of him, but it’s likely you know his “creative partner” the Americana singer-songwriter Gillian Welch.

They’ve played and toured the country together for more than two decades, with Rawlings’ guitar propelling the instrumentation behind Welch’s gorgeous vocals. Rawlings has also worked with the Old Crow Medicine Show and Ryan Adams.

On this tour, however, Welch will be supporting Rawlings as he showcases his latest album, “Poor David’s Almanack.”

Rawlings comes to Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center on Wednesday, and to San Francisco’s Fillmore on Thursday.

Reviewing “Almanack” last July just ahead of the album’s release, Rolling Stone said: “Start to finish, the album is a testament both to his (Rawlings’) immeasurable talent and to his essential place in the roots and Americana music scene.”

This is very clearly Rawlings’ show - it’s not billed as “David Rawlings with Gillian Welch,” even though that would likely get more people into the theaters.

Those who come to Wednesday’s show to hear Welch won’t leave disappointed, however. She typically sings with Rawlings on songs such as “Cumberland Gap” from the new album.

But even those who come just for Welch will almost certainly leave blown away by Rawlings’ masterful guitar work, his high, lonesome voice and his engaging demeanor.

In an early February phone interview with The Press Democrat from his home in Nashville, Rawlings suggested that “Almanack,” his third album, is his most personal.

It’s filled with what he calls “story songs” with simple chords and structures that evoke the music of some of his boyhood heroes, namely Jim Croce, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.

“As a little kid I had always connected to story songs. By the time I was in my early 20s, I realized that so much of country folk music comes from the same headwaters,” he said.

“It all runs down from these ballads, story songs that were passed down for hundreds of years. So I found some of these little structures that I was really interested in trying to work on, and then Gillian and I started to flesh them out.”

The result is revelatory, songs that are part of the great American folk tradition but ambitiously take creative leaps.

“A lot of times you’ll be working on a song and it seems to dictate what it wants,” Rawlings said.

“You’ll try to push it in one direction or another, and in some cases it just won’t go. Eventually you find that part of yourself that connects with that structure or song, and then you’ve made something new.”

The underlying simplicity of the songs didn’t mean that the writing process was a breeze.

“I find it fascinating that in a lot of cases when things are this simple, when songs are this direct, you kind of have to spend a lot of time clearing yourself out of the way,” he said, “and then find one way in, one thing that you think of or feel.”

Rawlings cites his recent song, “Come On Over My House,” as an example.

“It took a really long time to figure out what that one line was going to be that was going to give (the song) that feeling,” he said.

“That song finally came to fruition in the middle of the night, driving from California to Nashville. It was actually dawn I think –– all of a sudden I thought of that line and was able to figure out what the rest of the song was going to be.”

Rawlings said several of the previous albums he made with Welch had songs that were created like slowly made paintings, and that the songwriting process on “Almanack” was more akin to photography.

“That’s what’s special about this record. Everything from the songs to the entire process was quicker and more immediate,” he said.

“In some ways, it felt like a more modern process even as the music felt more deeply rooted in the American folk tradition.”

On much of the record, Rawlings uses a 1959 D’Angelico guitar. He records with analog tape, which gives the music an authentic and textured feeling.

And he produces his own vinyl recordings for those who want to listen the old-fashioned way.

In concert Rawlings still uses a favorite guitar that he’s played for years, a 1935 Epiphone Archtop that he found in a friend’s attic.

As talented as he is as a songwriter, Rawlings occasionally covers the work of other musicians at his shows.

On Jan. 23 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium he played Old Crow Medicine Show’s “I Hear Them All,” and a couple of Dylan songs, including “Queen Jane Approximately,” according to Setlist.fm.

Welch sang a couple of her songs at that show, including “Wayside, Back in Time” and “Look at Miss Ohio” from her phenomenal “Soul Journey” album on which she and Rawlings collaborated.

Asked if his partnership with Welch goes beyond music, Rawlings paused and offered an elliptical response.

“Well, it’s never been part of the act,” he said, suggesting it’s not something he wants to discuss.

Then he added: “Being in a creative partnership for as long as we’ve been in a creative partnership, you always have to find your way through stuff.

“We would never have been able to work together as long as we have without being able at the end of the day to have the same sort of aesthetic, or both know when we think something is right and done,” he said.

“And that’s the very fortunate thing that we’ve had working together –– there have been moments of disagreement, but when we get to the bottom of it we both feel like we’ve gotten to the right place.”

Michael Shapiro is author of “A Sense of Place” – he writes about travel and entertainment for The Press Democrat.