Photo courtesy of Tom Larsen Tom Larsen, who has been writing and playing his own unique version of the blues for 25 years, performs Friday at Jive.

OCEAN CITY -- Next week will mark a quarter of a century since Tom Larsen first ventured into the old Talbot Street Cafe in downtown Ocean City, backed by a band of friends.

It's been 25 years since the night he chose to take a stab at playing electrified blues. The once acoustic-only blues guitarist walked out of the famed resort hotspot and onto the road as a full-time musician.

The homegrown talent from Somerset County never had to hold down a 9-to-5 job again.

After all these years, he said the best tribute he can pay to his milestone is just to press forward.

"I was actually thinking about making a big deal about the 25 years," Larsen said. "Somehow, it's just sort of crept up on me. I know I did it (25 years) and it's quite a landmark. The best celebration is just to continue doing it."

Twenty-five years later, Larsen is still out there playing the music he continues to identify with. It's the music he -- and his audiences -- still remain infatuated with.

"I must be speaking to someone that I could be here 25 years ago and I can still come back and do it," he said. Twenty-five years later, Larsen is still drawing inspiration from everyday life to craft a rather eccentric take on the blues. Nearly 99 percent of tunes the Tom Larsen Band plays are originals Larsen penned.

"I have my own viewpoint and perspective. I like taking it out and perfecting it," he said of his songwriting. "It's hard to walk around in day-to-day life and experience what goes on without going, 'There's a good song.' It's about being out there and experiencing what people go through. There's just all kinds of things to experience."

What's kept him interested in the musical art form he first developed an ear for by listening to the records of trailblazing bluesmen -- like Robert Johnson, Old Blind Willie McTell, Charlie Patton (as a young man?).

"It's the same thing that got me into it in the first place," Larsen said of the blues. "It's a certain point of view and a certain way of looking at things, a soulfulness, a direct way at looking at life. It's not all about life is terrible, life sucks. It takes a lot of that into consideration. It focuses in on honesty. It's about real life."

Larsen -- joined by bassist Charles Calloway and drummer Tony Robinson -- will focus on up-tempo, funk blues for audiences Friday night at Jive. It's music he said the audience should be able to dance and bump to.

"I want to make it so people at the very least will be tapping their feet and drumming their fingers. I want them to get up and say 'Forget this sitting around stuff.' " Those who take in the show will see the selections from his current album "Wrong Side of the Blues," which is pretty far out from the blues' establishment.

"We've been the bad boys of the blues," Larsen said. "Being the outsiders, I have bumped up against the blues establishment. If I had played the games and stayed more traditional and kissed up to everybody I think we would have been a lot further along. But we didn't." Never known to be one to stick to convention, Larsen's been told his progressive blues is not the "real" blues. It's been either too funky or too urban or too fusion.

Nine albums, hundreds of blues festivals, thousands of shows and millions of ears later, Larsen's just getting started proving everybody wrong.

"Retirement is for people who have other things they have to do besides their job," he said.

Pete Beisser can be reached at pbeisser@smgpo.gannett.com.

Originally published Thursday, June 10, 2004