Marc Cohn performing at the Greenwich Odeum Thursday, March 5, 2015.

Marc Cohn knows how to connect with an audience. At the Greenwich Odeum Thursday night, Cohn made it feel like he was playing for a bunch of old friends. Then again, many in the audience were longtime fans of the Grammy Award-winning Cohn, whose 1992 hit Walking in Memphis serves as a calling card.

He played for a sold-out crowd undeterred by the daylong snowstorm and they were well rewarded. Cohn was funny, soulful, and engaging.

In Listening to Levon, a tribute to Levon Helm – he talked about the wonderful, circular experience before Helm died in 2012 of being asked to play that song by Helm himself, so Cohn got to play  Listening to Levon while Levon listened to Listening to Levon. Cohn shared several such moments with the audience, between songs.

Other songs included Silver Thunderbird, Walk Through the World and the new song, The Coldest Corner in the World, from a documentary soon to be released called “Tree Man.”

Playing with Cohn – for the first time all together, he told the audience, not that we could have known – were the very able Joe Bonadio on percussion, Glenn Patscha on keyboard, and Kevin Barry on guitar.

By the time Cohn played Walking in Memphis, it was like a little extra dessert after a large and satisfying meal – welcome but not essential.

The sound in the Odeum was terrific Thursday night – the theater team seems to be figuring out the acoustics. And Cohn himself seemed charmed by the theater’s up-from-the-depths story of survival. “I’m going to tell my musician friends they’ve got to check this place out,” he said. Let’s hope Cohn doesn’t stay away too long either.

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