Wheeler a crowd pleaser> Songwriter and her guitar present food for thought

Two sides of singer Cheryl Wheeler were on display Sunday, to the delight of the large audience at the Sea Dog restaurant-pub in Bangor.

There was the observational-humorist side of Wheeler, who kept the largely female crowd roaring with such songs as “The Potato Song” (sung to the tune of the “Mexican Hat Dance) and “Is it Peace or is it Prozac?”

In making the transition to her more introspective songs, Wheeler said, “Let’s get into the depressing stuff. This is folk music, so let’s get melancholy.”

Wheeler’s serious works, such as “Further and Further Away” and “Arrow,” allowed the listener to draw lessons about life from her experiences, without Wheeler’s becoming preachy.

The afternoon show started about 15 minutes late, as Wheeler, garbed in a blue T-shirt and jeans, admitted she had overslept.

“We had a bunch of coffee before we left Boston at 11 [p.m.], and stayed up talking, so I didn’t get to sleep until 5 [a.m.],” she said. “I didn’t plan to get up an hour before show time, but I did. So I’ll be playing `Old Man River’ for the first 40 minutes.”

She didn’t make good on her threat, instead opening with “Driving Home,” the title cut from her 1993 Philo Records debut, about the thoughts drifting through her mind as she drove from Utica, N.Y., to her hometown of Timonium, Md.

Between songs, Wheeler would put on her glasses to tune her guitar while talking to the audience. When she returned her glasses to a nearby stool, it was time for the next song.

Wheeler quickly established a rapport with the audience, bringing added depth to each song by describing the circumstances of how she came to write it. But any subject was open season for the 46-year-old Wheeler, even the problems of growing older.

“I recently have taken to wearing a bra on stage,” she explained. “I still don’t wear them offstage, and this is the first time I’ve ever had one on at this hour. It changes the position of the guitar signficantly.”

In addition to her hits, Wheeler, a Massachusetts resident, also played several new tunes which she described as her “divorce” songs, including “Boulder Motel Room” and “All the Livelong Day.”

“It wasn’t really a divorce, since we weren’t married,” she said. “But 14 years is 14 years, and over is over.”

She also included two brand-new songs that she had played only once before publicly, the comical ditty “Robertson,” about watching a bloodsucking mosquito, and the bittersweet “Yeah, Yeah.”

Wheeler wrapped up with the crowd-pleasing pair “Mrs. Pinocchi’s Guitar” and “Estate Sale” before leaving the Sea Dog stage. She returned to encore with “Howl at the Moon,” a song written for her dog that describes a universal need for connection to others.

In 90 minutes, Cheryl Wheeler had given the audience what they had come expecting — a bunch of laughs, but also a lot to think about. She showed why she had earned her strong reputation as a respected singer-songwriter.