David Mayfield, literally a homegrown bluegrass hero, plays Boot & Saddle Wednesday

David Mayfield is a hotdog, a grandstanding bluegrass griot of Americana with an acoustic guitar in one hand, a mandolin in the other, and more dark, homespun stories to tell than a caffeinated Mark Twain. He does, however, come by it naturally.

The singer/bandleader and collaborating instrumentalist for the Avett Brothers (among others) hails from one of Nashville's first families of bluegrass - the Mom & Pop outfit, self-proclaimed empty nesters David and Valerie Mayfield, as well as singing sisters Amanda Lynn Mayfield and Jessica Lea Mayfield.

"You know, growing up and playing with my parents and siblings meant really learning to think of my role as that of an entertainer," David Mayfield says from his home in Nashville. Art or not, Mayfield thinks of what he does onstage as that of a blue-collar professional, "more like a plumber or an electrician than an artist." Plus, his parents instilled in him a real and deep appreciation of an audience - "that your crowd could have gone to a movie or stayed home; that they didn't come to see a group of people onstage looking pissed off or that it's some great privilege to see them. "I'm born to entertain. That's my sole job when I'm on the road."

Entertaining takes precedent over everything else for Mayfield, who released the gutsy Strangers in 2014 and whose new music will be on display at his Wednesday show at Boot & Saddle. "Besides, I'm a ham anyway," Mayfield says with a laugh.

In childhood, Mayfield longed to be in his parents' band, and he made his big move at 12 when dad's bassist quit - ready to audition even though he had never played bass. "Dad made me a deal: If I learned bass, concentrating on a guitar's bottom strings, I was in. I learned, their income tax check came in, I got my bass and became part of the act."

Playing bars and churches was awesome for the home-schooled Mayfield siblings. "It's funny, though, when we played churches, I never felt quite comfortable, like we were con men. I mean, we played gospel songs in bars, as well - mixed sets between bluegrass, country, and holy music. Being a traveling family bluegrass band, you feel like carnies."

Mayfield branched away from the music of his household when he heard banjoist John Hartford's brand of "hippie-grass" and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, bought for a quarter at a Goodwill store. "That led me to go down the rabbit hole of writing my own stuff," he recalls.

He traveled as sister Jessica Lea Mayfield's bassist at the start of her solo nu-folk career in 2007 ("We're goofy together. I was more her chaperone than her bassist"). He truly made his bones as a virtuosic instrumentalist for Scott and Seth Avett, lords of aggressive Americana. "They're humble guys, so unlike some of Americana celebrities - oxymoronic, right? - that think they're Elvis."

Not only are the Avetts' nice, it was Seth who encouraged David Mayfield to go solo and Scott who is collaborating with Mayfield on a forthcoming 2016 duet album of upbeat, lighthearted originals and covers, an answer record to the dark, recently released "sibling swap" Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith. Mayfield is also readying a second 2016 album that hews closer to the bleak, breakup record Strangers, but without most of its tragic longing.

"It's funny because when I first started Strangers, I really wanted to make something fun and light, but [I] wound up ending a long relationship and lost a bunch of friends, he says with a laugh. "I was in a dark and lonely place. And Strangers became a snapshot of that time." The new, as-yet-untitled album has dark spots but is a breath of fresher air in his mind.

Talk about the nuanced beauty of his work and the line between bluegrass and other inspirations that his songs include (to these ears, Dylan and Waits), and Mayfield says getting away from his family's traditionalism was not something he ever tried to disavow. "When I started [his band the David Mayfield] Parade, bluegrass was so deeply ingrained in me, it just came out. I can't do anything without that coming through. I'll write a song that I think sounds like Metallica, only for someone to tell me, 'That's pretty twangy, man,' so I just embrace that."