“When he broke onto the scene in the early ’70s, no one knew where the hell he came from, and he liked it that way,” Loudon Wainwright III, who was paired with him on bills back then and again more recently, said by email. “Somebody once saw a Canadian passport, I think, but Redbone refused to be pinned down.”

By the mid-1960s Mr. Redbone was living in Toronto, and, self-taught on the guitar, he began performing at folk clubs and coffeehouses. A pivotal moment came in 1972, when Bob Dylan noticed him at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario and was so impressed that he talked of producing his first album. That didn’t happen, but Mr. Dylan did commend Mr. Redbone to Rolling Stone in a 1974 interview.

“Leon interests me,” he said. “I’ve heard he’s anywhere from 25 to 60, I’ve been this close” — Mr. Dylan here held his hands a foot and a half apart — “and I can’t tell. But you gotta see him. He does old Jimmie Rodgers, then turns around and does a Robert Johnson.”

Mr. Redbone was by that time playing at larger halls and festivals and was being paired on bills with Tom Rush, John Prine, Mr. Wainwright and others.

“Mr. Redbone does amusing, funky old blues songs with a sly gentleness that almost amounts to parody,” John Rockwell wrote in The Times in 1974, reviewing a performance at the Bottom Line in Manhattan, “but so lovingly and exactly that he can only invite affection.”

His other albums included “Double Time” (1977), “No Regrets” (1988) and “Up a Lazy River” (1992).

Mr. Redbone, who lived in New Hope, Pa., is survived by his wife, Beryl Handler, who acted as his manager; two daughters, Blake and Ashley; and three grandchildren.