In The Blossom of Their Shade Pokey LaFarge

• 1 Get It 'Fore It's Gone 03:35
• 2 Mi Ideal 03:46
• 3 Fine to Me 03:59
• 4 Drink of You 03:43
• 5 Rotterdam 03:25
• 6 To Love or Be Alone 03:58
• 7 Long for the Heaven I Seek 04:41
• 8 Killing Time 03:44
• 9 Yo-Yo 04:01
• 10 Goodnight, Goodbye (Hope Not Forever) 04:37
• Total Runtime 39:29

Info for In The Blossom of Their Shade

Pokey LaFarge’s 7th studio solo album, In the Blossom of Their Shade, showcases the positivity of coming out of the darkness and into the light. When the 2020 global pandemic hit, LaFarge’s rigorous work ethic powered him through the potentially challenging creative period. As days became a couple months, songs blossomed from embryonic ideas into full-formed ones and he was ready to move on, which typified his mindset as a working artist. With this record LaFarge captures the thematic notion of being the perfect summer afternoon soundtrack...the type of music you want to listen to while having a cocktail with your significant other. It makes sense musically as well — LaFarge intentionally crafted songs that created space and have melodies that can glide throughout a composition that’s a far cry from the swing and blues-infused songs of his earlier work. LaFarge is an artist who refuses to rest on his laurels and compromise. He’s always motivated and ready to create. With In the Blossom of Their Shade the album is one of LaFarge’s strongest and most mature efforts to date.

"If you've been following Illinois-bred troubadour Pokey LaFarge since at least the mid-2010s you'll be familiar with his jazzy throwback brand of folk and country. It's a sound that's earned him a cult fan base, and one which he's found surprising ways to update, dipping into socially aware '60s-style soul on 2017's Manic Revelations and 2020's Rock Bottom Rhapsody. With 2021's In the Blossom of Their Shade, LaFarge takes his musical timelord skills to new heights, concocting a vintage-inspired rock & roll sound deep with decade-bending influences, that somehow remains stylistically coherent. It's also one of his most buoyant albums, playing like a balmy pool-side party. These are hooky songs, full of snappy rhythms and woody analog textures, including tasty tube amp guitar riffs, barroom piano, and woozy organ flourishes. Some of these giddy, back-to-basics aesthetics are at least in part due to Chris Seefried, who co-produced and arranged the album with LaFarge. Also adding an old-school sensibility is engineer/drummer Alex Hall, who previously worked and played on Rock Bottom Rhapsody and at whose Chicago-based Reliable Recorders/Hi-Style Studios LaFarge recorded the album. While many of the tracks on In the Blossom of Their Shade could have been recorded any time between 1950 and 1968, there's a timelessness and genre-bending quality to LaFarge's work that brings to mind artists like Paul Simon and the Kinks' Ray Davies. There's also a strong undercurrent of slippery, '50s-style R&B, and cuts like the swampy "Fine by Me" and the gospel-inflected "Killing Time" conjure a tantalizing hybrid of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Whether sidling into the tropical country-reggae of "Get It Fore It's Gone," or rising with throaty passion into the Spanish chorus of the Roy Orbison-esque "Mi Ideal," LaFarge imbues each track with warm ebullience marked by his reedy, pitch-perfect harmonies. While LaFarge might still be a time-traveling rock troubadour, he seems to have found the center of his musical universe with In the Blossom of Their Shade." (Matt Collar, AMG)

Pokey LaFarge was ready to move forward.

In March 2020, the veteran singer-songwriter packed up and left his Los Angeles abode behind, putting his belongings in storage in anticipation of spending extensive time on the road in support of his then-forthcoming album, Rock Bottom Rhapsody. He couldn’t wait to head down to Austin a few weeks later to showcase those songs and launch the album with his band at South-by-Southwest. Then the pandemic hit and all of LaFarge’s well-laid plans went into thin air.

Stuck in East Austin with nowhere to go, LaFarge did what he does best: he got to work. Throughout his career, nine albums to date including a stint on Jack White’s Third Man Records, the singer-songwriter has never been one to look back in anger or disappointment. LaFarge used the sudden change in plans to his advantage, having perhaps his greatest period of personal growth in the midst of this crippling pandemic.

It came as no surprise that the songs instantly started to flow out of him. LaFarge is an artist who refuses to rest on his laurels and compromise. He’s always motivated and ready to create — and when he’s at peace in isolation like he was here, the results can be magical. Looking in, inspired by the deep soul not just from these shores, but from distant geographical places like Africa or South America, LaFarge set out to create a body of work that paired emotional lyrics with a killer groove and grabby melodies.

Written by LaFarge and co-produced with Chris Seefried, the album is one of LaFarge’s strongest and most mature lyrical efforts to date. The album’s title, In the Blossom of Their Shade, is taken from a lyric in the stunning, yet dusty “Mi Ideal.” That song sonically draws influences from the Southwest, South America and Caribbean. The distant warmth of the music, especially rhythmically, adeptly coincides with the longing that's expressed in the lyrics.

Unlike its melancholy predecessor, In the Blossom of Their Shade showcases the positivity of coming out of the darkness and into the light. The record was nearly titled Siesta Love since it captures the thematic notion of being the perfect summer afternoon soundtrack...the type of music you want to listen to while having a cocktail with your significant other. It makes sense musically as well — LaFarge intentionally crafted songs that created space and have melodies that can glide throughout a composition that’s a far cry from the swing and blues-infused songs of his earlier work.

LaFarge’s rigorous work ethic powered him through this potentially challenging creative period. As days became a couple months, songs blossomed from embryonic ideas into full-formed ones and he was ready to move on, which typified his mindset as a working artist.

After he left Austin, he headed up north to Chicago for two-and-a-half months to record In the Blossom of Their Shade. At home in the city two hours north of where he grew up and became a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan, LaFarge rigorously and meticulously recorded the songs (half of which he wrote with his best friend Nick Africano over FaceTime) in the Windy City.

Thematically, LaFarge, in a way only he can, tackles a wide gamut of emotions. On “Rotterdam,” it’s easy to hear how the dreamy song encapsulates a notion of a Shangri-La even in the most unusual of places.

Look no further than album closer, the twangy “Goodnight, Goodbye (Hope Not Forever).” The song neatly ties the past year along with a universal longing that brighter days are on the horizon, even if it doesn’t seem so right now.

Pokey LaFarge never wanted to be an artist that had one gigantic record and was then lost to the annals of history. As for now? He’s back to where the whole odyssey began over a year ago: Los Angeles. Even with In The Blossom of Their Shade on the horizon, LaFarge hasn’t put down his pen. You can’t keep a great songwriter idle.

Pokey LaFarge

Pokey LaFarge
is a musician, songwriter, bandleader, entertainer, innovator and preservationist, whose arsenal of talents has placed him at the forefront of American music. Over the last decade, Pokey has won the hearts of music lovers across the globe with his creative mix of early jazz, string ragtime, country blues and western swing. After signing with Jack White’s Third Man Records to release his fifth full-length album (Pokey LaFarge) in 2013, he performed as a musical guest on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show on Ireland's RTÉ One network. Pokey's rendition of "Lovesick Blues" with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, featured on an episode of Boardwalk Empire, was selected for inclusion on the series' official soundtrack (Vol. 2). Additionally, Pokey appeared in Disney’s The Lone Ranger (both on screen and on the original score), was featured on A Prairie Home Companion and NPR's World Cafe, and recorded a song for ATO Records' Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War, produced by Randall Poster.

2014 has been Pokey’s most momentous year yet; by spring, he had brought his music to five continents, with international tours in India, Australia and New Zealand. In the past year, Pokey's tour trail (consisting of over 250 shows) included appearances at clubs and festivals across the USA and Canada as well as two extensive tours in Europe. Pokey has played with the likes of Jack White, The Raconteurs, Wanda Jackson, Old Crow Medicine Show, and most recently, Carolina Chocolate Drops. As an opening act on Jack White's Blunderbuss tour, he delighted sold out crowds at Red Rocks Amphitheater and Radio City Music Hall, among other notable venues in North America. Pokey is currently touring with a five-piece backing band, including his original bandmates (Ryan Koenig on harmonica, washboard and snare, Adam Hoskins on guitar and Joey Glynn on upright bass), in addition to Chloe Feoranzo on clarinet and TJ Muller on cornet.

At only 31 years old, Pokey’s career has not slowed in momentum since it began with his first release Marmalade (2007). Shortly followed by Beat, Move and Shake (2008) and Riverboat Soul (2010), Pokey quickly graduated from breakthrough artist to leading musical figure, receiving two consecutive Independent Music Awards for Best Americana Album (Riverboat Soul and Middle of Everywhere).

Pokey’s music transcends the confines of genre, continually challenging the notion that tradition-bearers fail to push musical boundaries. Rather than merely conjuring up half-forgotten imagery of days past, Pokey is a lyrical storyteller, the plot delivered smoothly through his dynamic vocals. Both on stage and off, his effortless wit never fails to charm audiences, giving way to a live music experience that manages to be grandiose and unassuming all at once. Born in the heartland of America and based in St. Louis, Missouri, Pokey’s Midwestern charisma welcomes his audiences with open arms.

Pokey LaFarge is on a mission, encouraging fans worldwide to think differently about what it means to celebrate musical traditions. Simply put, Pokey explains, “It’s not retro music. It’s American music that never died.”

This album contains no booklet.