Pokey Lafarge

Born Andrew Heissler in 1983 in Bloomington, Illinois, Pokey LaFarge fits into the American tradition of itinerant musicians before settling in St. Louis, where he shaped his project between folk song, 1920s–1930s jazz, country blues and western swing. After self-produced beginnings in the mid-2000s, he gained attention with the albums Riverboat Soul (2010) and Middle of Everywhere (2011), recorded with his band The South City Three, which established a clear taste for acoustic formats, travel narratives and arrangements inspired by early jazz. Signed to Third Man Records, he released Pokey LaFarge (2013), broadening his audience and taking him to international stages, before exploring more electric songwriting on Something in the Water (2015) and Manic Revelations (2017). From Rock Bottom Rhapsody (2020) and In the Blossom of Their Shade (2021) he introduced stronger pop, rhythm and blues and Latin American influences while maintaining careful work on voice and narrative lyrics — a trajectory continued with Rhumba Country (2024), where the blend of roots traditions and original compositions that characterizes his aesthetic reappears.