MUSIC
BY WILLIAM KENNEDY
GRANDPA CHIC
Pokey LaFarge brings his brand of
classic country pop to Eugene
M
uddy Waters changed Pokey LaFarge’s life.
“I was, like, 13,” LaFarge tells EW, recalling
the time some “older cats” played him Waters’
classic 1963 album Folk Singer at a pizza
joint. “I thought, ‘Wow, the blues are
acoustic?’” LaFarge recalls. “It changed my life.”
Pokey LaFarge has built a career exploring and
reviving musical styles that, while occasionally veering
toward jazz or country, remain resolutely pop-centric,
though not the kind of music commonly thought of as pop
these days. More like the old-timey pop of your grandma
and grandpa’s time, a simpler time when everything was
less fragmented and compartmentalized — when a singer
could sing a country weeper and a hot jazz scorcher and
a bluesy swinger and no one batted an eyelash. Instead,
they just drank up and kept dancing.
No, it probably wasn’t really like that back then, but
listening to LaFarge you almost believe it could’ve been.
“I love a good song,” LaFarge says. “I have my own
style and my own personality,” he continues, adding
“that personality and identity will enhance any song and
make it identifiable to me. I have a pretty original voice
at this point.”
LaFarge says that for him, as a teen, older pop music
styles — from dirty blues to jazz — felt almost avant
garde.
“It’s the acoustic-it-y,” LaFarge explains. “At a young
age you don’t really listen to a lot of acoustic music.
You’re hearing electronic dance music, or rap, or metal or
whatever,” he says, explaining the influence older pop
music had on him. “It’s the style itself, the ensemble
playing, melody, the stories that they’re telling.”
Along with commonly expected vintage influences,
LaFarge lists artists like Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Tom
Waits and Hoagy Carmichael as favorites. For LaFarge,
however, classic country singer Jimmie Rodgers is
particularly important.
“He’s kind of like the musician version of Steinbeck or
Kerouac,” LaFarge says. “He’s kind of like the Mark
Twain of country music. He laid the foundation of what
country music is today.”
LaFarge won’t go so far as to say modern pop is
missing something, but he does urge listeners to look to
the underground for the good stuff. “There’s so much
amazing music these days,” LaFarge says. “There’s just
as much good music today, if not more, than there ever
was. I would encourage people to keep digging.”
Last year, LaFarge released Something in the Water.
He says he’s coming to Eugene prepping a new record,
but feels it’s a little too fresh to talk about, and he likely
won’t be playing any new songs this time through town.
With his unreleased material, LaFarge finds his
songwriting approach subtly changing. “It was almost
always melody first,” he explains, “and then it’s kind of
become more lyrically driven, going into this next
album-making process.”
Overall, LaFarge says he feels deeply rooted in
tradition and yet he’s established a sound all his own,
calling his current band a “family.”
“I’ve been around for awhile but I’m just as hungry as
ever,” LaFarge says. “I’m just as passionate about making
music as I ever was.” ■
Pokey LaFarge plays with Minnesota old-time country band Cactus
Blossoms 9 pm Tuesday, May 3, at Hi-Fi Music Hall; $15 adv., $18 door,
21-plus.
28
A pril 28, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com