Pokey LaFarge
Pokey LaFarge (born Andrew Heissler, June 26, 1983) is an American musician, writer, and actor. Early life. LaFarge was born Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Illinois. The nickname "Pokey" was coined by his mother, who would scold him to hurry when he was a child. LaFarge took an interest in history and literature during his childhood, and was greatly influenced by his grandfathers. One was a member of the St. Louis Banjo Club who gave him his first guitar and tenor banjo. The other, an amateur historian, taught him about the American Civil War and World War II. LaFarge  enjoyed the writings of John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac. As a teenager, he combined his appreciation for history and writing with his discovery of blues music. In his early teens, while he was living in Normal, Illinois, LaFarge first heard blues at Jake's Pizza, run by a man named Juice. Jake's Pizza was decorated with portraits of blues musicians, and exclusively played blues; the music of Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon in particular inspired LaFarge. He discovered an appreciation for older blues musicians like Skip James, Robert Wilkins, and Sleepy John Estes. After hearing Bill Monroe  at age 16, LaFarge traded the guitar his grandfather had given him for a mandolin. He adopted the name "Pokey LaFarge" because it sounded like what he was looking for musically during the time he was moving around the country. After graduating from University High School in 2001, at the age of seventeen he hitchhiked to the west coast and earned a living as a busker on streets, sidewalks, and pedestrian malls. He met Ryan Koenig and Joey Glynn of the St. Louis band The Rum Drum Ramblers while he was playing on a street in Asheville, North Carolina. Koenig  and Glynn began playing with LaFarge in 2008, and the addition of Adam Hoskins in 2009 resulted in the formation of the South City Three. Career. LaFarge independently released his first album, "Marmalade", in 2006. During the same year, he toured with The Hackensaw Boys. His second solo album, "Beat, Move & Shake", was released in 2008 by Big Muddy Records. "Riverboat Soul", the first album with The South City Three, was recorded in July 2009 at the Nashville studio of producer Phil Harris using vintage instruments and electronics. It was released in 2010 by Free Dirt Records and won the  Independent Music Award for Best Americana Album. The group's second album, "Middle of Everywhere", won the same award in 2011. The band released "Chittlin' Cookin' Time in Cheatham County" produced by Jack White for his label Third Man Records. White asked the band to collaborate with him on the song "I Guess I Should Go to Sleep" for his album "Blunderbuss", followed by opening for him on tour. In 2013, LaFarge signed with Third Man Records and released his first album on the label, the eponymously titled "Pokey LaFarge", accompanied by a larger band that included Chloe Feoranzo, Matthew  Meyer, and T.J. Muller. During the next year, he signed with Rounder Records and released "Something in the Water" in April 2015. In 2017 his album "Manic Revelations" was released on Rounder Records. On January 22, 2020 LaFarge announced the release of a new album called "Rock Bottom Rhapsody" which was released on April 10 on the New West label. Musical style. The group is thought to be "artfully dodgy ambassadors for old-time music, presenting and representing the glories of hot swing, early jazz and ragtime blues" who have "made riverboat chic cool again." Stephen Thompson of NPR says  LaFarge's . . Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show said Genre. His repertoire consists of a mix of Americana, early jazz, ragtime for string instruments, country blues, Western swing, Vaudeville, and Appalachian folk. "American music is the tops: People respond to it all over the world because it's expressive and powerful," LaFarge told Madison's "Isthmus" newspaper in 2011. Influences. Musicians that have influenced him include Howlin' Wolf, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, Milton Brown and the Musical Brownies, Modern Mountaineers, Sleepy John Estes, Henry Townsend, Frank Fairfield, Fats Waller, Emmett Miller, and Willie Dixon.