Pokey LaFarge is a youngish guy whose music Spotify occasionally serves up to me. His sound has evolved over the years from really old timey (like the Squirrel Nut Zippers) to old timey (like J.D. McPherson) to his latest album Rhumba Country which inspired this post. It's not fair to say it sounds like a Beck album, because those are big shoes to fill, but like Beck he melds a bunch of different musical styles together and I dig it.
The first Pokey song I heard was End of My Rope which is one of his more moderately old timey jams from a few albums ago, Rock Bottom Rhapsody.
Here's the title track from his first album. You'll see what I mean about the Zippers.
He made a handful of albums with this general sound, gradually adding more background musicians and improving production quality.
Then in 2020 he released Rock Bottom Rhapsody. I guess the pandemic gave him the opportunity to listen to music that wasn't originally recorded on a wax cylinder and he did some songs like this.
In 2021 he released In the Blossom of Their Shade, probably after listening to a few reggae and surf records. See what I mean?
Continuing his southward musical journey, Rhumba Country includes a few Latin influenced songs. I'm particularly fond of One You, One Me and its nominal hiphop lyrical flow at the beginning.
The rest sounds like something you would get from Dan Auerbach's solo stuff. You know how much I enjoy pseudo-soul jams like this.
All this is a long-winded way of saying I like Pokey LaFarge's new album and encourage you to listen to it.
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