BATH – The Chocolate Church Arts Center will kick off its 2007-2008 season with a performance by legendary folk singer Tom Paxton Friday, Sept. 7.

Paxton has been an integral part of the songwriting and folk music community since the early ’60s Greenwich Village scene and continues to be a primary influence on today’s New Folk performers. He writes stirring songs of social protest and gentle songs of love and friendship.

“Tom’s songs have a way of sneaking up on you. You find yourself humming them, whistling them and singing a verse to a friend. Like the songs of Woody Guthrie, they’re becoming part of America,” Pete Seeger said in a prepared statement.

“In a small village near Calcutta, in 1998, a villager who could not speak English sang me ‘What Did You Learn In School Today?’ – in Bengali. Tom Paxton’s songs are reaching around the world more than he is, or any of us could have realized,” Seeger added.

A Chicago native, Paxton moved to New York via Oklahoma, which he considers to be his home state. His family moved there in 1948, when Paxton was 10 years old. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma, where he majored in drama while his interest in folk music grew and eventually predominated.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25/$30/$33. For tickets and more information, call the box office at 442-8455, or visit the Chocolate Church Arts Center Web site, www.chocolatechurcharts.org.