Pokey LaFarge

Pokey LaFarge merges vintage rustic textures with his sharp wit and deep grounding in roots traditions, pulling from old-time country, blues, folk, Latin music, and Western swing. An itinerant performer since the mid-2000s, he expanded his audience in 2012 by joining Jack White on tour, after which White’s Third Man imprint released the 2013 album Pokey LaFarge. That exposure led to the Jimmy Sutton-produced Something in the Water in 2015, which reached the Top 30 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. Rock Bottom Rhapsody arrived in 2020 as a daringly varied set that wove present-day influences into LaFarge’s classicist approach, a step he built upon later that year with In the Blossom of Their Shade. Rhumba Country, issued in 2024, incorporated electronic touches along with Tropicalia, mambo, and reggae into his existing framework.

Andrew Heissler was born in 1983 in Bloomington, Illinois, where an early fascination with American literature, history, and twentieth-century roots music took hold. During his teenage years he began shaping these interests into original songs, playing guitar, mandolin, and banjo. Following high-school graduation he embraced a nomadic existence—adopting the nickname Pokey—and busked on street corners across the country. Encounters with sympathetic players soon led to the formation of his own group, the South City Three, comprising Adam Hoskins on guitar, Joey Glynn on standup bass, and Ryan Koenig on harmonica, washboard, and percussion. The self-produced debut Marmalade appeared in 2006.

Further independent releases followed, among them 2008’s Beat, Move, and Shake and 2010’s Riverboat Soul, before Jack White took notice. White enlisted LaFarge and the South City Three for the track “I Guess I Should Go to Sleep” on his 2012 album Blunderbuss, invited them to open tour dates, and signed LaFarge to Third Man Records in 2013. That year the label issued the self-titled Pokey LaFarge, now expanded to a sextet that included Chloe Feoranzo on clarinet and sax, T.J. Muller on trumpet, and Matthew Meyer on trap drums.

A November 2014 deal with Rounder Records brought Something in the Water to stores in April 2015. LaFarge shifted course with 2017’s Manic Revelations, channeling ’60s soul. The following year he balanced touring with work on his ninth album, Rock Bottom Rhapsody, which merged his signature roots foundation with rock and dance elements. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted live work, he turned to writing and recording, emerging in September 2020 with In the Blossom of Their Shade, co-produced and arranged with Chris Seefried. After subsequent touring, a restless period of travel culminated in a stint working on a Maine farm. Physical labor renewed his creative drive and prompted a new perspective that roots and country styles manifest differently across cultures. Rhumba Country embodied that outlook through mambo, rhumba, and reggae inflections while employing sampling and loops in its arrangements.