Review: Pokey LaFarge at Noble Coffee

City Three

Noble Coffee & Tea, April

3

Here's an exchange to sum up

an early-afternoon show by St. Louis-based, old-time string band Pokey LaFarge

and the South City Three at Noblesville's Noble Coffee & Tea. First

LaFarge, riffing off the name of The Bishop, the Bloomington venue where he and

his band would play Sunday night, thanked the Catholics in the crowd for attending early mass

so that they might come out in time for his show. But, Geoff Davis, director of

the Blue Stone Folk School, the Noblesville outfit devoted to traditional arts

and crafts that hosted LaFarge's concert, countered with, "This is our religious experience." LaFarge came back: "Mine too."

And as for spirituo-musical

fellowship, the Blue Stone Folk School has a pretty good thing going. They've

been putting together concerts at Noble Coffee & Tea, an independent

coffeeshop on Noblesville's town square, for at least as long as I've been

doing this job (a little over three years), bringing in traveling acts of the

acoustic, often old-timey, variety, matching them up with locals affiliated

with the school, including the youngster Evan Slusher (who's headed to the

Newport Folk Festival this summer) and Jason Hathaway (with whom LaFarge has

performed all over the state). 50 or so persons of all ages fit comfortably

into a narrow side room in Noble's sprawling complex Sunday afternoon, from kids, blissfully

unaware of the implications of LaFarge's double-entendre numbers and rolling on

the floor in the back, to toe-tapping old-timers with American flag

pockets hand-stiched into their slacks.

Davis handled the opening

duties himself for this show, playing standards ("Honeysuckle Rose," "Alcoholic

Blues" by "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" composer and Hoosier Albert von Tilzer)

on ukulele and trombone. Then, without a pause, LaFarge, on guitar, and his

three cohorts (on guitar, string bass and miscellaneous percussion,

respectively) took the stage, announcing that they hadn't slept or eaten in 24

hours, and that this was the earliest show they could remember playing in a

long, long time, but that the power of caffeine would keep them going.

And it did: LaFarge does

justice to his heroes, the now somewhat-obscure figures in the world of

hillbilly, mountain and old-time music that made most of their recordings

before WWII, and mostly during in a prime period that fell after advent of

electronic recording in the mid to late '20s and before the Depression made it

less than economically beneficial for labels such as Okeh to churn out niche

old-time or "race" 78s. And it's almost all about the recordings for 20-something artists like

LeFarge — folks like Mike and Pete Seeger had the opportunity to meet

some of the musicians who made those recordings when they were re-discovered in the '50s and '60s, but

this generation has only the records to learn from. So, did your average

old-time musician have quite the strident, nasal tenor that LaFarge

has adopted, or is that simply the style of singing, adapted to less than responsive microphones, that comes down to us from

history, forever altered by the means by which it reaches us? And not that it's an either/or thing: former Hoosier Jake Smith once of the band

the Mysteries of Life, now known as Jacob Smith in an academic setting, makes an

interesting study of how vocal styles develop

simultaneously with the entrenchment of recording technologies in his

book Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media.

Regardless, LaFarge and his band sound

authentic — and look the part too, down to LaFarge's slicked-back hair and

suspenders and the washboard player's feathered fedora. His band even plans to release a 78 next year, which follows on

their 7-inch now available on Jack White's Third Man Records (recorded under "interesting" conditions, LaFarge explained from the stage,

because White's music couldn't be more different from his band's). But all these accoutrements

would be moot if his band couldn't play - and they sure can. LaFarge and Co. ably offered up both upbeat

dance band numbers (notably "Right Key, Wrong Keyhole") and surprisingly

nuanced, dynamic and playful readings of slower tunes, including "Chitlin'

Cookin' Time in Cheatham County," the A-side to that Third Man 7-inch. Thoroughly familiar with the repertoire, they made "St. Louis Blues" their own (the song

being a required number, according to LaFarge, because they're from St. Louis)

and gave an appropriately wry take on "Some of These Days."