FARMINGTON – It wasn’t his largest audience but he had their attention.

A first-year writing class at the University of Maine at Farmington had plenty of questions for Maine singer and songwriter David Mallett on Friday.

Mallett, whose daughter Molly was in the class, sang and played some of his music on acoustic guitar and harmonica and talked about writing music.

A fifth generation Mainer from a small town in northern Maine, Mallett has been playing and performing for more than four decades.

The theme-based writing class, teacher Luann Yetter said, is studying the songs of Bob Dylan this semester.

The class connects the songs to other things including the influence of important writers and the Bible on Dylan’s work, she said.

“Dylan had a big influence on everyone and brought guitar, vocals and harmonica to another level,” Mallett said.

A musician from the 1960s, Dylan wrote songs that addressed issues. He read newspapers and sang about the issues the world was facing, he said.

“He set a standard,” he added. “He sings about anything and makes it work.”

The students were just as interested in hearing of Mallett’s work as they plied him with questions.

His songs have been recorded by many artists including Pete Seeger, John Denver and Emmylou Harris, he said.

Mallett told the group he knew he would be a singer at an early age because he and his brother traveled around the state performing the works of Johnny Cash and others.

His “Garden Song” has become an American folk classic. It has had the greatest impact and been his most powerful song, he said.

Many of his songs reflect the dangerous times we live in, things are always pretty trying, he said.

After working a 9-5 job as a songwriter in Nashville, Mallett wanted to return to Maine where he started. The logistics of traveling and recording are more difficult but he’s just not the urban type, he said.

He was inspired to start writing in the 1970s by the music of Gordon Lightfoot. Now he collects ideas and may take months to develop them into a song. Sometimes he goes through long stretches without writing, he said, explaining how it took nearly a year to come up with the words to follow one line in his song, “The Summer of My Dreams.”

Maine is a mythical place to many people outside the state so “the guy from Maine” includes a lot of nature in his songs

Over his career, which spans four decades, Mallett likes best the music he writes and performs today. His voice has deepened with age making him think he sounds better, he said. His songs have become simpler but have “more groove,” he said.