Elan (A-lahn): “vigorous spirit or enthusiasm.” — Webster … Elan Atias (A-lahn a-TIE-us): “vigorous, spirited, enthusiastic lead singer of The Wailers, coming Jan. 22 to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts’ Underground Series.” — GO!

Pardon our presumption with the home-grown second definition there.

But after spending some time on the other end of a phone line with Elan (goes by his first name professionally, and will be referred to by same onward), presumption has very little to do with it.

Elan’s, well, élan is obvious from the moment he says “Hi!” with palpable vigor, spirit, etc.

Having caught an earful of his exuberant performance style, too, doesn’t hurt any; an aural/musical precedent has been set.

It also doesn’t hurt that at his side and earpiece is one of the most formidable living legends in reggae annals: Aston “Family Man” Barrett (who goes by Family Man, and will be referred to by same onward).

Family Man, the last standing member of the original Wailers, pitches in with an occasional comment or two, which, truth to tell, doesn’t always translate well through his musically rich Jamaican accent and a dicey cell phone connection.

But Elan, who advises, “I may have to translate for you,” is there to run interference with the vexing vagaries of cellular technology.

Family Man’s words don’t always make the leap, but his spirit transmits itself, which, considering the musical subject at hand, is almost enough.

An immediate, if borderline-tactless, question for Elan arises.

If the late Bob Marley (1945-81) is looking down on his legacy now, would he be a tad surprised by the fact that his lead-vocal position in the world’s most famous reggae band, The Wailers, has been supplanted by a nice Los Angeles Jewish boy of Israeli-Moroccan-Native American extraction?

Both men chuckle at the question, indicating this isn’t the first time it has been posed.

“None of that keeps me from delivering the message, which is the heartbeat of reggae,” Elan says. “It’s the spirituality of the music, that’s what really gets to everyone.”

Not, he says, the color of his skin or even the former matter of his extreme youth (he was still a teenager when he first joined up 10 years ago).

“My career has never been about boundaries,” he says.

Family Man chimes in (actually booms in, per his rich basso profundo voice) with heartily similar sentiments, as translated by Elan.

Breaking down his eclectic heritage, he notes that his father gets the credit for the North African (Moroccan) and Israeli part of his DNA, while his mother contributed the Native American portion.

Mix it all up, and voila!, and you’ve got not only the world’s only Israeli-Moroccan-Native American reggae singer — but you’ve also got the solo star Elan, the one who provided the Adam Sandler box office hit “50 First Dates” with its redo of Roxy Music’s “Slave to Love” (with Gwen Stefani, no less, on backing vocals) and the “Sex in the City Soundtrack” CD with its sultry “Dreams Come True.”

For the impending BCPA Underground show, Elan, Family Man and the rest of The Wailers have something very special in store for us: a track-by-track performance of the 1977 Wailers album, “Exodus,” which Time magazine named “the most important album of the 20th century” as the century prepared to turn in late 1999.

“That will take up the first hour of the set,” says Elan, adding that each album’s cuts will be performed in proper sequence, followed by a second encore set of greatest hits from the Wailers catalogue.

The latter was begun in 1969 when Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston joined forces with the bass-playing Family Man and his drummer brother, Carlton “Carlie” Barrett.

Livingston and Tosh soon moved on, but the Barrett Brothers remained on board, helping ferry Marley to his international breakthrough in 1974, “Natty Dread.”

That was also the year that Eric Clapton covered Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and scored a No. 1 single, pushing a reggae beat into the mainstream at an unprecedented level.

Three years later, “Exodus” refined the Wailers’ fusion of reggae, ska and rock to what many critics have called its purest form, with the Barrett brothers pitching in on the songwriting front and Family Man co-producing (as it he did on 11 of Marley’s albums).

Recorded during Marley’s exile in London (after an attempt on his life in Jamaica), it bequeathed the reggae world definitive classics like “Jamming,” “Three Little Birds,” “One Love” and “Waiting in Vain.”

The momentum from that peak was short-lived: Marley died of cancer in 1981, at the age of 36. Six years later, Carlie Barrett was slain outside his home in Jamaica.

Since then, Family Man and his legendary bass riffs have kept the tradition going through various Wailers permutations, including the hiring of the 19-year-old Elan as lead singer in 1997.

The singer, now 31, says “Family Man got his name because he’s the one that has kept it all together — from day one he was there, even as people come and people go.”

For Elan, his hiring in 1997 seemed like his destiny, and no less.

“I was into hip-hop, new wave and rock. Then my older sister started playing Wailers music — I was about 7 years old — and as soon as I heard it, it got me turned around to reggae.”

There was no turning back around.

The moment of destiny came when he crossed paths with Wailers guitarist Al Anderson at an L.A. club, The Opium Den. They forged a bond, and soon after, he was in a recording studio with the world’s premier reggae band.

“Those were my college years, and I had the best professors in the world,” says Elan. “They taught me the ropes, told me what to do and what not to do. They let me learn from their mistakes. And I graduated with honors.”

After Family Man got an earful of the new kid on the block, the decree came down. Family Man said it went something like this: “Boom! You get that kid, now!”

He continues, “Hey man, I was shocked and surprised he was so good!”

Elan eventually went off to find his own muse after, he says, “graduating from college,” sans animosity or regrets.

In the past year, he was tapped to return as a new all-star Wailers album loomed, one (still under wraps) featuring some of contemporary music’s biggest names.

Then or now, say Elan and Family Man, almost in unison, “Reggae is music for all eyes, for all ears, for all ages, for everyone.”