New London — Steve Elci's love of music actualized in his parents' basement, watching his dad, Vic, a notable big band leader in the days of lore and legend here in our corner of the world.

Elci learned everything from Sinatra to what a horn should sound like, carefully absorbing music's muse, which Leonard Bernstein once said could "name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable."

And how he's all grown up, having played many things in his life — drums, guitar, center field — and happily on stages entertaining kids and adults alike. His time has come to become the state's next troubadour, an honorary position as Connecticut's ambassador for music, for which he's applied and will learn with everyone else later this fall whether he's our official Music Man.

"The first time I applied, I wasn't nominated," Elci was saying earlier this week. "I sent in what I would call looking back now as a lackluster attempt. This is different. People have nominated me multiple times."

And why not? "Steve Elci and Friends," children's music that's not just for kids, has us clapping and singing along through habit. Not merely entertaining, but with messages of hope and positivity, hearkening the days of troubadours who were deftly talented lyric poets.

It began for Elci, as many great musical memoirs do, in a smoke-filled room.

"My dad was a big band leader going back to the late 40s," Elci said. "Every weekend in our downstairs basement around our pool table, we had a big band there playing. Practicing. Every weekend as a little kid I was down there. I couldn't believe how much people smoked back in those days. Our house was an ashtray."

But where there's smoke ... there's a lyre. And all the other instruments Elci came to appreciate. By the time he reached high school, baseball kept its place in his mind as our pastime, but music beckoned.

"I stuck with baseball because I felt it was the Elci thing to do," he said, alluding to playing center field on Waterford High's 1988 state championship team. "But I quit football because music was my passion. By high school, I got the bug to write and sing. I wanted my songs to have a message. This was at the time of Live Aid.

"I started playing the guitar in high school and I wanted to do something for the community. We created 'Harmony for the Homeless.' We had the Guns N' Roses style bands, the Neil Young style, all on stage. I think we raised $1,500 and gave it to the Covenant Shelter. It's funny that here I am now, a complete circle in my life."

Elci pays the bills now as the Mental Waiver Manager at the Homeless Hospitality Center in New London, providing services for people who state clinicians have deemed to have a mental illness.

"I always wanted to use music to do some good in the community," he said. "As I grew as an artist, instead of creating events for causes, I was able to put the causes into music and sing it in a way that's poppy."

"Steve Elci and Friends" hatched rather innocently, once he became a dad in 2001.

"The kids would start having birthday parties. Listening to the radio, I wasn't comfortable with what was being played," Elci said. "I thought I could write songs that I thought they would find interesting, fun and have better messages.

"One day at a party at our house, Connor might have been 5 or 6 and we had 10 kids over. I took out my guitar. No idea what to play. I started to make up things on the fly. The kids were dancing and singing. It clicked with me right there. This is what I should be doing. I am not the brooding rock and roller. Not the alternative rock guy. I am somebody who can bring messages to kids and help families come together."

Now comes the chance at being our troubadour, all while Elci sings, helps the homeless and watches his son, Jordan, play two sports for the Lancers.

"The catch is that you need a song about Connecticut to get in," Elci said.

Elci submitted a song about Benedict Arnold (easily heard on iTunes and seen on You Tube.) This comes after "Submarine Town," a song Elci wrote in 2004 to save the sub base and earned hosannas in the New York Times and "Crayons In A Box" that salutes the diversity movement.

"It's  funny," Elci said. "I went and I looked at some of the music others have submitted over the years. They're all about our beaches, how Connecticut is a beautiful place, how the hills are alive. I'm bringing them something about the anti-hero."

Here's wishing Elci luck. His messages and mien have made our place a better place. The definition of a troubadour.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro