Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom Rhapsody

Rock Bottom Rhapsody is the ninth studio album by American musician-songwriter Pokey LaFarge, released in April 2020 via New West Records.

Though he was born in 1983, Pokey LaFarge is an artist whose music harkens back to an era decades before his birth - vintage country in the manner of the great Jimmie Rodgers, classic acoustic blues and jazz, Western swing, and the songs of the ragtime era. An evocative songwriter and a singer with an easy, ingratiating style, LaFarge has an acoustic band that's the perfect match for his musical blend of past and present.

In early 2018, LaFarge - searching for the sort of artistic freedom and inspiration he wasn’t finding in the Midwest - relocated from his long-time home base of St. Louis, Missouri, to Los Angeles, California. New songs came quickly to LaFarge in his new environment but new temptations soon found him, as well. Though he declines to get into specifics, LaFarge admits that he experienced a significant “fall from grace” during the last months of 2018. “Things sort of started to unravel in my mind.”

Recorded primarily at Reliable Recorders on Chicago’s Northwest side, Rock Bottom Rhapsody was produced by LaFarge’s friend and collaborator Chris Seefried (who also cowrote several of the album’s tracks) and features the considerable talents of guitarist Joel Paterson, keyboardist Scott Ligon, upright/electric bassist Jimmy Sutton and drummer Alex Hall.

Musically, LaFarge continues to mix and match a wide variety of styles and traditions, while never losing track of his own vision “This record is kind of like Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan hanging out with chanson singers and French jazz bands in like the forties, but I was never trying to make it sound like a particular person.”

Despite the trying period that preceded its recording, Rock Bottom Rhapsody is ultimately far more uplifting and life-affirming than its title would suggest. “That desperation, that struggle,” LaFarge ponders, “Did it add something to the record? It certainly did. I mean, I don’t know if it made it better; it just is what it is. It’s not up to me to decide if people are going to feel that...”

This album is a limited indies exclusive edition on pink coloured vinyl, pressed in the US via New West Records.