Edwin McCain likes to hang out with people who have lived interesting lives. He finds it’s good for his songwriting.

“When I was living in Hilton Head (S.C.), I met this guy in his 80s who had grown up on an Indian reservation in Arizona, running loose in the canyons, and his stories became the song ‘Go Be Young,”‘ said McCain, 40, from his home in Greenville, S.C. “I’ve got another song, ‘Sign on the Door,’ that I ripped from a conversation I had with a very interesting woman in a bar.”

McCain’s soulful singing style and thoughtful lyrics have earned him critical raves and helped him sell millions of albums during his nearly 20-year recording career.

He will be in Scarborough tonight to play a show at The Landing at Pine Point. But it won’t be the first time he’s come to Maine. As a teenager, he was a counselor at Pine Island Camp in Belgrade.

“I made some long-lasting friendships and met some interesting folks there. I love Maine,” said McCain.

McCain was a few minutes late for this phone interview, saying he was at a Lowe’s buying some supplies he needed to install a solar-powered gate. He likes doing things with his hands and hanging out with craftsmen who know more than he does. It’s another way he gets inspiration and ideas for songs.

When he was restoring a 1930s vintage airplane a few years ago, for instance, he encountered several older pilots and World War II veterans with interesting stories.

“I guess I’m drawn to people from the Greatest Generation; people with very soulful character,” he said.

When he gets song ideas from people’s life stories, he tends to “romance the narrative” a little bit. That may be one reason why his 1998 hit “I’ll Be” is played at so many weddings. Another of his best-known songs is also a love song, “I Could Not Ask for More.”

“The songs of mine people acknowledge the most seem to be the love songs, and that’s more about the way they are interpreted than the way I intended them,” said McCain. “A lot of times the audience gives a song a different life, and that’s part of the process.”

Although McCain is a romantic, he’s got a smart-aleck side too. He makes frequent appearances on the VH1 TV series “I Love the 70s” and “I Love the 80s,” where his job is to make fun of the pop culture of that period.

“A lot of the people who were interns at VH1 when I was getting started are running the place now,” he said. “So when they asked me to come on and just make fun of stuff, I said, ‘Awesome.”‘

McCain grew up in Greenville, the son of a pediatrician. His first pivotal musical moment came when he was 6 or 7 years old and he heard songs from the 1977 album “All ‘N All” by Earth, Wind & Fire. The rhythmic and vocal complexity of the songs blew McCain away.

“I thought, ‘Wow, people can do that?’ “

And throughout his career, while searching for provoking stories to tell, he’s kept true to the soul and R&B styles that first opened his ears to the power of music.

“Soul music is all about the effort, and to me it’s much more interesting to listen to Wilson Pickett going for notes he can’t get close to than it is to listen to notes hit perfectly,” said McCain.

“Nobody remembers the guy who gets on the train early, sits down and neatly unfolds his newspaper. But the guy who comes late, who’s running full speed and jumps on the train at the last minute, they remember him.”

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com