When it comes to masterful solo performers, there’s Darrell Scott and then there’s everyone else. 

This he proved with a stellar May 13 gig at the King Arts Complex’s Nicholson Auditorium – basically a large, open room with chairs put in rows – in Columbus, Ohio, under the auspices of Six String Concerts. It was his third appearance for the nonprofit since 2006.

Despite the sponsor’s name, Scott employed 18 strings and 88 keys as he accompanied himself on piano and acoustic, electric and Weissenborn guitars over the course of his enthralling, 105-minute, two-set gig.

“If it’s here, I’ll play it I guess,” Scott – author of such songs as the Chicks’ “Long Time Gone” and a member of Robert Plant’s Band of Joy – told his hard-listening audience of the instrumentation. 

Though he doesn’t use a setlist because, “I figure it out with you and for you,” Scott’s on-the-fly selections flowed like a carefully curated performance, ebbing and flowing with tension and unbridled joy in equal helpings. When he introduced “When You’re Tired of Breaking Other Hearts” – played on the Weissenborn – he explained it came from the LP Darrell Scott (points at self) Sings the Blues (wipes faux tear from eye) of Hank Williams (points skyward).

He opened on acoustic guitar, singing “There’s a Stone Around My Belly” and engaging the audience on the “hallelujah” refrain. 

Picking up his white, hollow-bodied electric axe, Scott cast “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” as a blues as sooty as the coal hidden in the hills of which he sang. The often-acoustic “There’s No Use Livin’ for Today,” meanwhile, skittered on an electrified Chet Atkins-inspired arrangement for one. 

Back on the acoustic to honor “one of my heroes,” Scott took ownership of Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” with a powerful, bottom-string-focused rendition that made the old classic brand new in the moment. 

During the amazingly diverse solo act, Scott sat the piano and evoked the murders of JFK, RFK and MLK inside the King Complex walls on the chilling “Born in ’55;” nodded to Mother’s Day Eve in the acoustic “She Sews the World with Love;” and evoked haunting spirits on “Wayfaring Stranger,” as he sustained notes from his electric guitar while playing the melody on piano. 

And then, he did it in reverse, sustaining notes on the keyboard and keeping the song moving forward on guitar; the epitome of virtuosity.

With a rare combination of musicianship and showmanship, coupled with a versatile voice that moves effortlessly from falsetto to baritone, Scott is a master tactician. And when he played “American Tune” in the No. 12 (of 14) slot – just after his own “The Whiskey Eases the Pain” – the Paul Simon song seemed to represent a Darrell Scott concert as much as anything Simon had in mind at the time of his writing.