Singer-songwriter-bandleader Pokey LaFarge brought his self-coined riverboat soul to The Grey Eagle last weekend. “I feel a strong sense of place because of the fact that I traveled so much in my life,” he said in an interview with Xpress. “It makes you appreciate what you have back home.”
Rocker/producer Jack White heard a Pokey LaFarge song on Nashville’s famed country music station WSM, and invited LaFarge and the South City Three to record a seven-inch of “Chittlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County” at Third Man Records. The band opened a number of dates for White and his group, The Raconteurs and contributed to the track “I Guess I Should Go to Sleep,” on White’s Blunderbuss. When it came time to record his self-titled album, LaFarge says that going with Third Man was an easy decision.
LaFarge says his goal is to have a versatile band that can play any kind of music. “With my limited instrumentation before, we did the best that we could with what we had,” he says. “Now that we have horns, people are like, ‘I like this new direction you’re going in. It’s so jazzy.’”
Read more about LaFarge here, and catch the band on Late Show with David Letterman tonight at 11:35 p.m. All photos by John Zara.
