The Olympic Theatre Arts’ contribution to the Sept. 2 First Friday Art Walk features singer/guitar player Dennis Blair.

Blair, who plays a 12-string guitar, has been performing in restaurants, clubs and at private parties and nonprofit events since he was 13. Throughout his performing career, his playlist has featured rock, folk, country and standards from the 1940s on through the 1970s.

“I have three criteria for playing a song,” Blair says. “I have to like it, I have to play and sing it well and my listeners have to enjoy it.”

As a youngster, Blair had eight years of piano lessons, but says he was bored, so taught himself to play the guitar and took all of the musical knowledge he learned playing piano to an instrument he really likes, that being the guitar.

“The truth is I don’t like to dance, so I entertain in self-defense,” he jokes.

Blair and his wife Sherry Wright retired to the North Olympic Peninsula in 2011 and since then he has performed mostly at local assisted living facilities. However, a recent Christmas gift of studio time at Jeremy Cays Productions prompted Blair to make a demo CD and explore other venues such as the First Friday Art Walk.

First Friday Art Walk Sequim is from 5-8 p.m. at various venues throughout the downtown core. Blair will begin playing at 5:30 p.m. at Olympic Theatre Arts Center, 414 N. Sequim Ave.

For more information, call 683-7326.