Rob Myers lay down his head at his kitchen table on a recent summer night, hot, frustrated but determined as ever to get the song right.

He listened intently to the sound coming from his computer.

“It’s an A to E flat,” he said to cofounding band member Elisha Wiesner, pausing the song. “Wait, is that a G?”

“What’s the first line of the song again?”

There are very few musicians in David Crohan’s league. He says so himself.

But he says it modestly as if, after more than 60 years of playing, he is still surprised by the fact.

“I was given an extraordinary gift. I can hear a popular song, and I can learn it in five or six minutes, and immediately put together an arrangement of it,” said Mr. Crohan.

Chiddy Bang, the rap duo currently in possession of a Guinness Book World Record for the longest freestyle rap coming in at nine hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, played, alas, a somewhat shorter set at the Stars and Stripes festival held at Nectar’s on Saturday night.

The event was a benefit for the YMCA and produced by Neon Gold Records, a record company run by Chilmark summer residents Derek Davies and Lizzy Plapinger. The evening also featured The Knocks, French Horn Rebellion and Savoir Adore.

Few people embody the statement “still waters run deep” more than Island singer-songwriter Willy Mason, equal parts thoughtful and lighthearted as he considers his musical roots and his career.

He is half done with his next album, which should be released around January. In August and September, he will be playing festivals in the United Kingdom.

Baby boomers may shudder at the thought but Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna founding member Jorma Kaukonen is entering his sixth decade of performing. It may be somewhat reassuring, then, to know that Mr. Kaukonen, he of blistering licks and subtle fingerpicks, is still at the top of his game.

On Saturday, March 5 KCT Concerts opens up its 2011 season with Willy Mason performing at the Katharine Cornell Theater.

KCT Concerts has a history of bringing to the Island incredible musical acts including last year’s headliners Paddy Keenan, Oisin MacDiarmada and Richie Stearns, to name just a few.

Of course, Willy Mason doesn’t have to be brought to the Island. He lives here. And yet the man is global. Later this spring he will be back touring Europe as he did last summer with Norah Jones.