‘Poor Howard’ Stith and Mike ‘Bullfrog’ Rogers bring their musical roots to the Seacoast.

Seacoast musicians “Poor Howard” Stith and Mike “Bullfrog” Rogers both have Midwestern roots on the Mississippi River. But they do not hail from the southern Delta region that spawned blues legends like Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Leadbelly. Stith was raised in Iowa and later moved to Minneapolis. Rogers was born in Rock Island, Ill.

“We joke about that, that we’re from the wrong end of the Mississippi,” Stith said.

Nevertheless, he believes their proximity to the river instilled a distinct quality in them that has not faded, even after they both moved separately to California and then to New England, where they first met some 30 years ago.

“I do believe that there’s some mystique along the Mississippi, and if you have been near that river for any period of time, there’s just something that you pick up, and it seems to run the whole length of the river from north to south,” Stith said.

Maybe that’s why the two have such a natural musical rapport, as evidenced on their new CD, “Going Home.” The disc represents the authentic country blues music that emerged from the Mississippi’s muddy banks in the 1920s and ’30s.

Like most early Delta blues recordings, the album features sparse instrumentation, with Rogers on harmonica and Stith on 12-string guitar and vocals. Each artist contributed a couple of original songs, while the rest are arrangements of covers and traditional tunes.

According to Stith, the pair sat down and jammed at Dirt Road Studios in Berwick this past spring, releasing the finished album in June.

“We hardly ever rehearsed anything specifically. There were only a couple of songs that had odd rhythm patterns or changes. Generally, Mike is right on top of whatever I do,” Stith said. “He’s from the Sonny Terry school, and I can’t believe some of the licks he pulls out of his hat.”

Stith said he first heard Rogers play at an arts festival in Rochester in 1984, about a year after Stith moved to the area from San Francisco.

“I heard Mike play and went, ‘Wow, I’d love to do some music with him.’ It turns out he was thinking the same thing when he heard me, but neither of us approached each other.”

It would be nearly a quarter-century before the two actually played together. The opportunity arose while Stith was recording his 2008 album, “Lonesome Road Blues.” He asked Rogers to lay down some harp parts, and Bullfrog eagerly agreed.

Over the next few years, Stith and Rogers began performing together as a duo. Their next live show, featuring several tracks from “Going Home,” will take place at The Barley Pub in Dover on Friday, Oct. 26, beginning at 8 p.m.

Also a member of local bands Salt River and Wooden Eye, Rogers has appeared on more than 30 CDs. He improvises freely around Stith’s country blues guitar picking, giving his harmonica its own distinct voice, sometimes plaintive, sometimes exultant.

Stith is no slouch either. He has been polishing his 12-string style since he entered the blues and folk revival scene in Minneapolis in the late 1960s, taking inspiration from local legends like Dave “Snaker” Ray and “Spider” John Koerner. There, he began researching the history of the music and grew obsessed with 12-string bluesmen like Leadbelly, Willie McTell and Barbecue Bob (the nickname “Poor Howard” comes from a Leadbelly song).

“I have been trying to keep that music alive, because I think it’s a really important part of the American folk music scene,” Stith said.

His efforts are apparent on the CD, which includes covers of songs by Ray, Koerner and Leadbelly, as well as other Delta bluesmen like Charlie Patton. Although some of those songs are 80 or 90 years old, Stith believes they still resonate today. Songs from the Depression era seem acutely applicable during the current economic struggle.

“Holes in my pockets, I’ve got big patches in my pants / I’m behind in my house rent, and she wants it in advance,” Stith sings in “Bricks in my Pillow.”

Even some of the original songs summon images of bygone eras. Stith once lived in St. Paul, Minn., in the same neighborhood where notorious bank robber John Dillinger had resided decades earlier. His song “John Dillinger” imagines what the area was like in the 1930s.

The album also features a couple of fun instrumental tunes, such as Rogers’ “Run, Bede, Run,” a harmonica solo about a chicken-chasing dog.

Stith and Rogers have already been writing some new material and have tentative plans for another album of all original music. Asked if they expect to continue working together for the foreseeable future, Stith offered his assurance.

“As long as we can,” he said.