He does something that's quite unique in today's music world. Nelson writes songs. Real songs, like the ones you remember from a few years ago, back when bands wrote things called "standards" that people sang along with while driving in their cars or whose melodies they whistled mindlessly, annoying everyone in their office. When was the last time you whistled an electronica track or sang along with Korn?

Nelson's new CD, Home Grown on the Range, is chock full o' memorable tunes, simple, acoustic songs with lyrics about love and longing, the kind that, once heard, are impossible to get out of your head.

"That's a measure of success," Nelson said from his Rubber Room recording studio in the basement of his midtown home. "If you can't get it out of your head, for better or worse, there's something there that's seminal, whether it's something you hate, like a jingle, or on the other end of the spectrum, something orchestral. The melody is everything."

Finally, at 25, he landed in Omaha and took a gig playing keyboards for Jonesin', a hot local band that played original southern rock. During their heyday, Jonesin' shared the stage with such stars as Marshall Tucker and Elvin Bishop in long-lost Omaha venues like the Music Box and the Liftticket.

"Jonesin' started playing at the Saddle Creek in '77, I came in '79 and the band ran its course over five years," Nelson said. "They were very popular. Brent Warford, the band's central figure, was a great songwriter."

But by '84, Jonesin' began to lose steam as the band was forced to play more and more mainstream top-40 covers instead of their original songs. The crowd that had followed them in the late '70s had grown up and quit going to bars. Nelson started jamming with the Hut Suts, a fun-loving bunch headed by Dan Prescher that played ska tunes by the likes of The English Beat and The Specials. They eventually morphed into the Linoma Mashers, Omaha's quintessential good-time band that "plays all kinds of sleazy party music," Nelson said. He's been jamming with them ever since.

His first solo effort, Home Grown on the Range, is a nine-track collection featuring some songs written through the years, others brand spankin' new. They range in style from pre-Graceland-era Paul Simon to Daniel Lanois to very laidback blues. All have solid hook-laden, sunshine-filled melodies. "Might Like to See You" is a quiet showstopper that features a simple-Simon guitar laced with some wonderful blues lines and Nelson's innocent, undecorated voice. "Campfire in My Soul" sounds like a children's song, probably because it is. On "Take Your Time," Nelson sounds like Traffic-era Steve Winwood; while the understated opener, "Yer On My Mind," is earthy Guthrie-style folk.

"I tried to look for songs that fit together one after the other that would uplift people," he said sitting behind the sound board, wearing his weekend T-shirt and jeans, while his daughter, Maria, sat quietly watching a kid-video nearby. His wife, Christina, was outside hanging laundry on the line. "It seems like there's so much available to bring people down. Home Grown on the Range points to our potential on the land. Can we grow our own energy, our own future; or are we dependent on fossil fuels and atomic energy?"

Here, Nelson spoke philosophically about his view of a world under siege by the corporations and the lawmakers who would box everyone into a life of consuming without giving back. "I want to bring something to the art that's pointing to the iceberg of human success that is frozen underneath the landscape of corporate ineptitude."

Whew! Nelson said he pressed 1,000 of the self-released CD, has given half away and hopes to recoup enough from sales at gigs to put out another collection of material selected from 30 years' worth of cassettes recorded since his teens. He regularly plays acoustic sets at local health-food stores and restaurants, as well as Borders bookstores.

What are his dreams of landing a record deal? "I'm holding out for Sony," he says, laughing. "Actually, I'd consider Rounder Records or Warner Bros, labels whose artists I admire, but I'm also interested in the whole Internet thing. I'm kind of modeling this after the cottage industry idea, at least to start with. I'm not in a position to take my family all over the country. I play in churches. I do the Zebra Jam every Sunday night at the Saddle Creek Bar. I'm 46. I'll go out on the road if the money gets good and the accommodations are in place, but I can't see myself sleeping in the back of my car."

He's managed to make a living doing nothing but music most of his life, either playing with other bands, such as the Mashers or pick-up jazz gigs with the likes of Matt Wallace and Spike Nelson, or in the country western trio, Little Red and the Loess Hills Ramblers. Not to mention a regular gig with The Trim Kings at the 40th St. Bar.