Dear Friends,

We hope you have enjoyed the start of 2012 as much as we have! We’d like to keep you updated on what we will be doing for the rest of the year, but first we’d like to thank you for joining us to ring in the new year with Jool’s Holland’s Hootenanny on New Years Eve. We were blown away by the massive positive response! The performance was one of our most significant moments yet, and we sincerely thank you for allowing us such a good time. Check out the videos from the Hootennanny, courtesy of BBC-2:

We’ve been relaxing and recharging our batteries since the new year began, but plan on visiting you this spring! We will be playing a few select dates in the Midwest, USA during February and will spend seven weeks from March until May playing in ten countries in Europe, including Ireland, England, Scotland, Holland, Denmark, France, Germany and Switzerland. Get your tickets while you still can, as the shows are selling out! You can find the most up-to date information about our touring schedule on the “Tour Dates” page on our website (click here for all the details). We’ll also be performing in a quite a few North American festivals this summer, which should be a real treat. Stay tuned for more details about those coming in the next few weeks.

A few other notes…

In the coming weeks we’re going to be working on a new video for a song from our most recent album Middle of Everywhere… send us a note and try to guess which one it is!

We recently reached 10,000 fan on Facebook! Thanks for the “likes”… we like you too!

We’re continuing to improve our website. Keep coming back to www.pokeylafarge.net to see what we’re up to…

Your support over the last year has meant a great deal to us, thank you so much. We look forward to another great year!

See down the road,

Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three

Dear friends,

As we approach the end of 2011, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be appearing on BBC’s annual New Year’s Eve program “Hootenanny” with the legendary U.K. musician, bandleader and television host Jools Holland!

The program will air at 11 p.m., December 31, 2011 until 1 a.m., January 1, 2012 on BBC Two in the UK. We can’t wait to ring in the new year with other talented artists, including Cyndi Lauper, James Morrison, Aloe Blaac, Ruby Turner, Sandie Shaw, Betty Wright, and The Vaccines. You’ll be able to watch the program anywhere in the UK, although it’s not available for streaming anywhere else in the world at this time that we know of, sorry folks! If we figure out how you can watch the program outside of the UK, we’ll let you know.

We really can’t express in words how excited we are to have the opportunity to perform on such a popular show. We’re grateful for being selected, and honored as one of the few American bands to be featured on the program this year.

Thank you again for making 2011 our best yet. We appreciate your support, and we hope to keep on pleasin’ ya in 2012!

Oh yeah, and don’t forget about our last couple of shows in 2011, all three with Kansas City’s own The Wilders! They’re going to be legendary shows for sure. See the full schedule and ticket information at the bottom of this newsletter. Hope to see you there!

Happy holidays!

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three

Dear friends,
 
Happy holidays! We’ve been roaming through the warm Savannah of Southeast USA for the past few weeks, and it’s been a nice way to greet the winter. We made a stop in Florida for Thanksgiving and played a few shows in between turkey, stuffing, and slices of pumpkin pie before heading back home to St. Louis.  We’ll be back on the road again soon, visiting Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Kansas, as well as a few pit stops in Missouri, to close out a great year (be sure to see our December tour dates listed in full below)!
 
2011 has been good to us. We’re thankful for the opportunity to share stages with The Wilders, The Dirt Daubers, The Two Man Gentlemen Band, Southern Culture on the Skids and many others while touring these past few months. We released the album Middle of Everywhere earlier this year and have been overwhelmed by the positive response from both critics and our fans. Our travels overseas to Europe have been especially rewarding. From the Shetland Islands Folk Festival in the UK, to the Take Root Festival in Holland, to the the Discovery Music Series in Norfolk, Virginia and the Americana Music Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, we’re fixing to find our place in the festival scene, and are looking forward to quite a few more in 2012! We’ll even add Germany and Denmark to the list of places we visit! 
 
It was a privilege producing the single “Chitlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County/Pack it Up” with Jack White’s Third Man Records, released earlier this year in March. Our tunes even made it to the big screen in BRICK BY CHANCE & FORTUNE, a documentary about the fine bricks of St. Louis. The documentary was produced by fellow St. Louisan Bill Streeter, who directed the video “So Long, Honeybee, Goodbye” from Middle of Everywhere. 

Are y’all hankerin’ for more tunes? We’re planning on spending some time in the studio creating a few. Keep your ears open for a new record sometime in the next 12 months or so. AND, we have a big announcements coming up that you won’t want to miss!

Be sure to keep up with all the latest news at our website www.pokeylafarge.net where you can find our videos, photos, and goods for sale, and find us on Facebook!

Dear friends,

It’s been a continuing trend these last few months… head out on the road for three to four weeks, come back to St. Louis for a few days of a little R&R, and then head on out on the road once more.  Well, it’s about that time to take off again!  But before we do that, we wanted to briefly share with you some of the highlights from our October run through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the USA…

We kicked things off at The Americana Music Conference where we played at The Basement in Nashville, TN. We then made our way up through North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and the rest of the Northeast USA with The Dirt Daubers  and the Two Man Gentlemen Band joining us for a few dates.  Both groups are dear friends of ours, and it was a real hoot to share the stage with them. Our shows in Washington, D.C., Cambridge, MA, Burlington, VT, and New York, NY were especially notable, as these shows were either sold out or at capacity. We’re so grateful for the large and enthusiastic crowds. Thank you so much for coming out to see us!

A few other notes about the tour… we received much praise from the media, including nice pieces from The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and NPR Music.

Also, take a look at a video from our performance of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" at the Attucks Theater in Norfolk, VA on October 13, 2011

We’re now headed down to the Southeast USA for November, and up to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and beyond in December. Please check the tour schedule below to see if we’ll be traveling near you! 

You can always keep up with us by visiting our website, where you can also find all our latest videos (and don’t forget our YouTube channel, too), photos, and our online store, where our new album, Middle of Everywhere, is available for sale on CD and vinyl.

Thanks for your continued support!

See you down the road,

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three

(photos in this gallery by Abbi Heissler and Steve Heissler)

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“St. Louis guitarist/singer/songwriter Pokey LaFarge leans on ragtime, country blues, Western swing and the early jazz of Chicago and New Orleans to create a spirited and engaging Americana style that has a playfulness the period re-creationists often forget.”
- Phil Gallo, Billboard (Aug 13, 2011)

“LaFarge not only remembers the good times- he is the good times…. LaFarge is the performer who’s ahead of the game right now, one potent enough to gain the attention of Jack White, who’s keen to record him. And this album, bless its Jelly Roll heart, should induce further attention as Pokey, singing, guitar-strumming and delivering hot kazoo, revives memories of old New Orleans, stirred in with country blues and a touch of Western swing…”

WELCOME TO THE MIDDLE OF EVERYWHERE

Greetings, and happy Summer!  For the July 2011 newsletter, we wanted to bring special attention to the much-anticipated new record Middle of Everywhere… July 19 is the official release day of the new album, meaning it’s now available worldwide!  Maybe you’ve heard the recording in its entirety on NPR’s “First Listen” feature, or maybe you downloaded a track from Paste Magazine’s “Song Premiere” before the release date.  Well friends, now you can purchase the recording at the pokeylafarge.net website, your local independent record store, Amazon, iTunes… really anywhere you can possibly think of.  And get this… the album is available on Compact Disc, digital download, AND 180 gram vinyl (secret- the vinyl is only available currently at the pokeylafarge.net website).

Check out some of the early reviews over in the right-hand column there, and stay tuned for more critical acclaim!

So Long Honeybee, Goodbye Video

The first video from Middle of Everywhere is the lead track on the album, “So Long Honeybee, Goodbye”.  Check it out here at Pokey LaFarge’s YouTube channel:

Be sure to check out some of the other videos featuring Pokey and the boys recently added, including clips from their “Songs from the Shed” series!

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three on Tour: Pacific Northwest THIS WEEK, Newport Folk Festival, and more!

The never ending tour of Pokey and the boys keeps rolling… some noteable stops include the Tractor Tavern in Seattle this Wednesday July 20 with pals The Gloria Darlings,  the Newport Folk Festival (Newport, RI), Pickathon (Portland, OR), and a very special album release party for the hometown crowd in St. Louis, MO at Off Broadway on August 19!  Soon after that they’re heading over for a quick trip to Europe to join in the festivities at the Tonder Festival (Denmark), and to visit some of their old friends in Scotland.  Check out the full list of tour dates below!

Thanks again for everyone’s continued support!

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three