It's 'Graduation' day for Joseph Arthur

Even Joseph Arthur didn't expect his new album, "The Graduation Ceremony," to turn out as well as it did.

Though the album's acoustic simplicity and revealing lyrics about the end of a relationship feel meticulously planned, "The Graduation Ceremony" (Lonely Astronaut) actually arrived through spontaneous bursts of creativity and coincidence. It developed while Arthur hit a slight roadblock during his work on an elaborate, ambitious concept album, "The Ballad of Boogie Christ," that is still unreleased.

"It was a real weird one," Arthur says, calling from a tour stop in Heidelberg, Germany. "I got sidetracked by too much material. I just got overwhelmed."

It's not a situation the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter takes lightly, considering his usual heavy, multidiscipline workload. In addition to making music and running his record company, Arthur is a well-regarded painter and author, so he knows how to juggle a lot.

This time, though, he was stymied. "It was one of those times when maybe you make different decisions if you had less to deal with," Arthur says. "I had to stop for a few days."

In an attempt to clear his head, Arthur decided to go back to basics. "It was real beginner's mind-type of stuff," he says. "It was very Zen, when you realize you have nothing. You realize that when you have an empty cup, you have nothing but potential."

He had written the simple, touching ballad "Out on a Limb" and liked the way it sounded. He headed to engineer Sheldon Gomberg's studio in Los Angeles, where he had recorded supergroup Fistful of Mercy's debut with Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison, and felt inspired by the space and his mood.

"I recorded 'Out on a Limb' and nine more songs in an afternoon," Arthur says. "I did it all without a click track and I thought it would make a nice acoustic record that I would sell on the Internet."

With that out of his system, Arthur returned to work on the project he wanted to finish, the full-band album "The Ballad of Boogie Christ." He had lined up the great Jim Keltner -- session drummer for everyone from Paul McCartney and John Lennon to Barbra Streisand and Joe Cocker -- to play on what is meant to be the album's opening track.

However, Keltner nailed the song immediately and wanted to keep on playing. "I said, 'Let me play you these tracks that I just did,' " Arthur recalls. "He loved them and rolled through all of the songs that day."

It wasn't until Arthur handed over the tracks to co-producer John Alagia, though, that he realized he had a new album. "There were loads of other songs that I had, but we kept coming back to all these Jim Keltner songs," Arthur says. "The songs had a real soul and a through line. It made sense. And Jim became the spiritual center of the record."

"The Graduation Ceremony" moves between revealing the regrets of a failed relationship and the hope of starting over. On the raw first single, "Over the Sun," Arthur is pretty direct with personal lyrics such as "When I cheat on you, you're still all I see."

"People told me, 'You might want to change that lyric,' " Arthur says. "I thought about it, but I didn't."

After all, he uses other personal details on the record, even discussing his hometown of Akron, Ohio, in "Midwest," by saying, "There's nothing to do in the Midwest but dream."

Of course, these days, Arthur has plenty to do. In addition to a new exhibit of his art that opened last week at The Gershwin Hotel, he will launch "10 Nights in June" next week, playing at The Living Room in Manhattan for 10 consecutive nights.

Arthur's ability to excel at his eclectic pursuits has won him lots of fans, as well as the admiration of fellow artists.

"I don't throw the term 'Renaissance man' around a lot, but Joe Arthur's a Renaissance man," says Greg Dulli, who had Arthur play on a song for his band The Twilight Singers' "Dynamite Steps" album. "He'll write a song right in front of you from scratch. I want to kidnap him and put him in my band. But he's working all the time."

Arthur says he hasn't put much thought into what he'll be playing during his "10 Nights in June" run, though he says the idea is modeled after a similar run he did in Montreal, where he played nearly 100 different songs over the 10 nights.

"I don't think there will be themes or anything, though I might have different guests," he says. "It's more fun that way. It will all work out."

There's no end to Arthur's talents

BY GLENN GAMBOA, glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

Joseph Arthur is a man of many talents. Aside from his primary career as a solo singer-songwriter, he has plenty of side projects and other pursuits to express himself. Here's a look:

PAINTER Though his Museum of Modern Arthur has closed up shop in Brooklyn and exists only online, Arthur's art often is seen as noteworthy as his music. An exhibit of his work is open at the Gershwin Hotel, 7 E. 27th St., Manhattan, and runs through June 30. The opening reception is June 9 at 6 p.m.

FISTFUL OF MERCY The rock supergroup, which also includes Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison, recently played the Coachella Festival, supporting their debut album, "As I Call You Down," which made a significant critical splash in 2010.

THE LONELY ASTRONAUTS Arthur has released two albums with his full band, 2007's "Let's Just Be" and 2008's "Temporary People," featuring more of a straightforward rock sound. He also has launched Lonely Astronaut Records, where he has released all his albums since 2006.

AUTHOR Arthur has collected his writings from his blog in the two-volume "Notes From the Road," photos of his paintings in "We Almost Made It," and even a coloring book of his drawings, called "Color Me Courageous."