The man. The music. The mantra.

Put all three together and you have the “perfect” storm - that is in Tom Storm, a Jim Thorpe folk singer who recently performed his first album, “Growth Rings: Oak” before an audience sitting in the round at Vic’s Jazz Loft in Stabin Museum’s restaurant.

Storm’s compilation of eight songs, a product of the pandemic, reflects on his life growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania and his deep soul searching during the COVID lockdown.

His lyrics, accompanied by the earthy sounds of acoustic and electric guitars, drums, keyboard, accordion, cello, saxophone and harmonica, speak to the very core of how nature nurtures human emotion.

The strings of sorrow

When asked at what point in his life that he had decided to become a musician, Storm replied, “I never did,” but after his mother was killed in a car accident on Maury Road in Jim Thorpe in 2001, he had found her guitar standing inside a closet and he realized it was a life-changing moment that was pulling on his heartstrings.

“She used to sing and play in a local church and she always wanted me to learn the guitar,” he said. “After the accident, I thought that playing the guitar was a great way to stay connected with her. You never learn how to grieve, but through my music, I can feel the inspiration of her voice running through me.

“This is how I process my sorrows through my joys.”

He brings his mother’s guitar and a friend’s replica of his father’s Stetson hat to be on display at his shows, as well as the carpet from her house upon which he and his band performed at the Stabin Museum.

The soul of sentiment

Storm’s songs are introspective.

He sings of “trying to shake the pain” and he admits “I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I’ve been.”

Before he sang the album track, “I Could Feel the Water,” he urged his listeners to make their own interpretations of nature’s compassion for the human spirit.

“There’s a wash of emotion whenever you look back,” he said. “It’s kind of a nervous calm.”

He had a dream one night of him and his mother having a conversation. “I was crying in my dream and I woke up exhausted like I had just walked 1,000 miles,” said the 41-year-old who grew up on a farm in Brodheadsville before moving to Jim Thorpe when he was 15.

“We need to learn how to breathe again when we feel loss, and this was the inspiration for writing the song “Another Moment to Breathe,” he said.

The new album, a creation that spanned a 20-year period of time, was engineered by Daedulus Productions of Jim Thorpe and was recorded entirely remotely; in fact, Storm’s rehearsal before his performance at the museum was the first time he had ever played live music with the album’s band members: Matt Miskie, Bob Noble, Doug Makofka, Daniel Gonzalez and Kyle O’Brien.

The album’s first track is “Oak Tree,” which was conceived from a picture he has of his mother standing in front of such a tree by the house that she lived in during her childhood.

Storm’s song transcends elements from nature to the human condition.

“It was the sun that helped us grow,” he sang. “Taught us to reap and to sow. Then the wind which pushed our resolve strengthened our roots, which we wanted to call out.”

They’re all love songs

“Old World Clothes,” his single cut from the album and “Off Leaves” are sentiments of blue-collar family life. “The Space in Between” was written during the solitude of the pandemic shutdown. The song is centered on the little that’s left when a loved one is lost.

Storm’s lyrics define such raw emotion. “All you have to ground yourself is a touch and a dream. The time you last held on tight and the space in between.”

In the haunting sounds of “Guy Trying,” Storm was accompanied by a trio of harmony singers who call themselves “That’s What She Said.”

“Every song is a love song,” Storm said. “If it’s not about a person, it’s about something in our natural surroundings, but it’s always about love.”

Performing a lovely ballad that band member Matt Miskie called “The best damn postindustrial song ever written about the Lehigh River,” Storm and his musical group personified the river water that flows through Carbon County.

“As she laughs, as she cries, she comforts the land.” Storm chronicled the history of the Lehigh and how it has evolved from the coal carrying river way it once was to a pristine watershed filled with a life-giving personality that everyone can now enjoy.

Coming full circle

For Storm, music is a coping mechanism for the difficult times he has experienced in his life. “It’s cathartic,” he explained. “My mother grew up in Medusa, New York, and I found the house she had lived in.

The owners showed me a wall inside where she drew all kinds of things that went through her mind while she was growing up. It was a confirmation for me about who she was as a child, and that message comes full circle through my songs.”

Not all of his music is “moody and broody” as Storm describes much of his new album. “When I perform, I like to do John Denvery kind of stuff, too.”

During his shows at the Mansion House in Summit Hill and the Confessions Tavern in Nesquehoning, his repertoire included a combination of his original work and cover songs from the 1960s until today. He is currently working on his next album to be titled “Growth Rings: Ash.”

When not writing or performing his music, he’s a professional photographer and a wood worker. He actually helped construct the Stabin Museum into a beautiful art gallery, concert venue and restaurant in downtown Jim Thorpe.

When the perfect “Storm” comes full circle, listeners to his soul sentiment-driven songs will find a comforting empathy through his lyrics and an extraordinary understanding of how events of the past shape the moments of the present.

In his own words, Tom Storm takes you with him down the road of life.

“My music starts in a place of need, but ends in a place of hope.”

To order a copy of “Growth Rings: Oak,” visit www.tomstorm.live