Trey Johnson, Dave Almond and Jason Helms perform at Saturday night's Songwriters Showcase, sponsored by the Klipsch Heritage Museum Association.

A couple hours after the night came, three singer-songwriter guitarists played their songs under the lights at Klipsch Auditorium to a near capacity audience.

Their distinctive styles of writing came through clearly, with Dave Almond, the more veteran performer, playing and singing his countrified blues cuts that spoke of cutting loose close to hayfields, Trey Johnson playing the part of avid, pleasing troubadour with jokes in his lyrics and Jason Helms plumbing the depths of lovelorn despair and playing solos throughout his music and that of his onstage companions that brought to mind the feelings that gallop across the distances among heart, body and brain.

A nice interplay took place as the artists accompanied each other on three guitars that rang in the theater like the commentary of choruses from the beyond on the earnest singers' descriptions of visitations savored and not, of romances ended and not, of second chances offered and not.

The applause of those seated was frequent as was their laughter as each musician introduced most tunes with a closely depicted, sometimes self-deprecating story of their origins. When the music ended just after the 9:00 p.m. hour, the crowd stood up and clapped as one.