Singer/songwriter Tom Rush, who helped shape the folk revival in the 1960s and was key to its renaissance in the '80s and '90s, said he should be "commercially extinct."

But largely because of the digital age, that's not the case.

"I'm busier now than I care to be," Mr. Rush said from his home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., a little more than a week before embarking on a tour that will take him east to concerts in Toronto, Rochester and at the Edwards Opera House, where on Sunday he will kick off its 2008 season.

Mr. Rush said he'd like to cut his touring down to one weekend a month, but isn't having much luck. "I'd like to be home more, with less work," he said.

It's a home he shares with his wife, author and naturalist Renée Askins. They have an 8-year-old daughter.

"I decided to have my own grandkids," Mr. Rush, 67, joked.

Mr. Rush's continued popularity can be attributed to the roots he developed decades ago. He's recorded 17 albums. Artists ranging from Jackson Browne to Garth Brooks cited Mr. Rush as an inspiration.

James Taylor told Rolling Stone, "Tom was not only one of my early heroes, but also one of my main influences."

Mr. Rush is also organizer of Club 47 concerts, which mix legendary artists with new talent. Club 47 once was a coffeehouse in Cambridge, Mass., now Club Passim. It became the epicenter of the folk renaissance in the 1960s, giving voice to such artists as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Today, Club 47 is a concert series organized by Mr. Rush. The concerts have filled such places as Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Rush said he'll record a studio album in a few months in Nashville, Tenn., the first since 1974's "Ladies Love Outlaws."But unlike his albums released decades ago, Mr. Rush isn't concerned about radio play.

"For the most part, my fans aren't listening to music on the radio," he said. He said his fans find and download his music from the Internet.

"Radio is pretty much irrelevant to almost any kind of music these days," he said. "People are going on the Internet and buying all kinds of music, and not just what the music industry wants us to buy."

Mr. Rush said he rarely listens to any sort of new music. "I haven't kept my ear to the ground as much as I should have," he said.

He added that he doesn't have time to listen to music the way he prefers to. It requires all his attention.

"I can't just put on a CD and go about my business of paying bills and folding laundry," he said. "It's just too distracting."

It's the same situation when he's driving. "I'd be listening and drive by my exit," he said.

Without new music to experience, Mr. Rush, an English literature graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., said he can't cite a musician who gives him inspiration for his songs.

"They just come out of nowhere," he said about his tunes.

He surprised himself when he wrote a children's song, inspired by his daughter. But he has no plans to record it.

"It will die of loneliness unless I get someone else like Tom Chapin to perform it," he said.