Denison Witmer used to have a day job. Working for a realtor in West Philly, he'd spend his days trying to reconcile two sets of incongruous numbers: The actual rent owed and the amount Penn and Drexel students would tell their parents (or "payrents," as they were called) they owed. Then he'd come home to pluck guitar strings and write smart, gentle lyrics about Philadelphia and the people he met there.

The job wasn't all bad. He liked the structure it gave to his days and the people he worked with. But one night he couldn't leave it behind. His sleep was restless, his dreams were overwhelmed by one kid's account for an apartment on Baltimore Avenue. His brain couldn't stop trying to balance the two columns. He woke up exhausted.

"I felt like I just worked all night," he remembers. So he started saving money and planning a tour. He gave his two weeks' notice, said goodbye to his job and security, and hit the road the next day.

"And it was a crappy tour. There were some really bad shows and I lost all my money," Witmer recalls with a laugh. "Then I came home and I was like, "Hmm. Now what?"

These days he's a touring machine. He's on the road at least as often as he's home, especially when he's got a new CD out. Unlike his others, which use only minimal instrumentation to back up his guitar and his soft, sandy voice, The River Bends and Flows Into the Sea (Tooth and Nail) is almost — loud?

Well, not really, but it does have a certain rock 'n' roll sensibility unlike anything else the introspective troubadour has put his name on. In fact, his name wasn't originally going to be on it. That was pretty much the label's idea. The River Bends is a band he put together with multi-instrumentalist friends Steve Yutzy-Burkey, Alec Meltzer, Scott French and Daryl Hirsch. (Yutzy-Burkey and Meltzer are also in One Star Hotel; sneak peeks into their upcoming CD, still being mastered at Miner Street Studios, are impressive.)

"From way back when, I always thought he'd sound great with a band," says Yutzy-Burkey, who's been a friend and musical collaborator of Witmer's since the two were growing up together in Lancaster County. "I've always tried to push him toward that, with some resistance along the way."

The title The River Bends and Flows Into the Sea in some ways refers to Witmer's uncharacteristic willingness to loosen up on the reins, both in terms of partnering with other artists and in writing more accessible songs. It's not pop music, not by today's glossy standards, but it does occasionally dabble in grander themes and — on beautiful tracks like "Looking for You" and "Lawyers and White Paper" — catchy choruses.

It's actually pop music by yesterday's simpler, more songwriter-centric standards. That the man was born about 30 years too late is no secret — not to his fans who hear hints of Jackson Browne and Leonard Cohen in his songs, or to Witmer himself, who put out a CD of songs written by his favorite '70s artists last year called Recovered. He is amazed that there was a time when Graham Nash was the sort of thing you'd hear on the radio.

For Witmer, starting the band was an exercise in expanding his horizons. "I think the older you get the less self-involved you get."

Which is not to say he's a converted man. He's already at work on a solo CD, one with just him and a guitar, like his earlier work. "I think deep down, everyone's a little selfish," he laughs.

Even as The River Bends and The River Bends make their debut, Witmer's 2002 album, Philadelphia Songs, is just now coming out in Europe, thanks to international jet lag. That CD sets his journal-like storytelling against the recognizable backdrop of a city that doesn't always love him back.

"My records definitely do better in other places," he says with neither a wink of surprise nor a hint of defeat. "Maybe my songs don't have enough of that Philadelphia grit in them."

He's not gritty, but Philly should appreciate his guts. For the last track on Philadelphia Songs, "Saint Cecelia (Ode to Music)," he and a friend, posing as tuners, boldly walked into the Ritz-Carlton and recorded on the hotel's grand piano. They managed to get six takes in during dinnertime. You can hear silverware crashing in the background.

Though he's quite skilled at writing regret ("Give me back a day — I know which one," he sings on The River Bends' "Are You Lonely"), Witmer is conscious of something romantic and hopeful in his music. He says it reflects the city that inspires it.

"I feel like Philadelphia definitely has that. I view it as a very hopeful place," he says. "It's really working toward something better than where it's at, kind of always looking ahead. Maybe that's just my own stupid romantic idea, but I see it here."

Denison Witmer and The River Bends play Fri., July 16, 9 p.m., $7, with One Star Hotel and Swell To Great, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.