Guitarist Dan Bern sure sounds a lot like Dan Bern

NEWHAVEN>> For some guitar-toting musical artists, it might be the kiss of death to be branded early in your career as the new Dylan or the new Springsteen or Woody Guthrie’s reincarnated spirit .

For Dan Bern, who has now written quite literally thousands of original songs, many with incisive, sarcastic, often bitingly funny — and, yes, occasionally Dylanesque and/or Guthrie-esque — lyrics, it was just a starting point. And fodder for future songs.

Bern continues to make fresh music a solid decade and a half after he was declared in some circles to be the next savior of American roots music — and will bring a healthy sampling of what he does to the intimate confines of Cafe Nine, 250 State St., on Thursday night.

Showtime is 9 p.m. NewHaven singer-songwriter Seth Where: Cafe Nine, Adam opens 250State St., the show. Tickets New Haven are $15 at Tickets: $12advance, the door or $12 $15at door in advance at Info: cafenine.com, www.cafenine. 203-789-8281 com.

A prolific songwriter, Bern is an Iowa native transplanted to Los Angeles. He has cranked out a solid 22 or so albums over the years since his first release in 1997, including three albums he released in 2012 alone.

Bern’s songs range from the overtly political “Bush Must Be Defeated” to a hilarious take on the origin of the human race (“No Missing Link”) to an entire album about baseball to multiple songs about his own heritage as a son of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

He even wrote at least one song poking fun at himself and the folks who praise him, “Talkin’ Woody, Bob, Bruce & Dan Bern Blues.”

In recent years, Bern also has written songs for movies — and even a novel, “Quitting Science,” that he published under the pen name Cunliffe Merriwether (with a preface by Dan Bern.)

Among other things, Bern wrote “Swing Set,” a duet with Emmylou Harris, for the off-Broadway production of “Family Week” directed by Jonathan Demme. He also wrote the title song for Demme’s documentary, “Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains.”

He followed up his three albums in 2012 (“Drifter,” “Doubleheader” and “Wilderness Song”) with “Hanukkah Songs,” featuring the all-time classic “Waffle House Hanukkah” – in 2013 and “Songs of Fall” earlier this year.

CONTRIBUTED Dan Bern