THE influences may be almost entirely pre-Second World War and even Bill Monroe's 1940s birth of bluegrass will be described in conversation as one of American music's more recent trends, but sonically there's little sense of revival, let alone nostalgia, about Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three.

This is a band that clearly reveres its forebears but is making music that lives emphatically in the moment.

Suited up like Al Capone’s enforcer, his gangster image enhanced by double bassist Joey Glynn’s brooding resemblance to a young Ernest Borgnine, LaFarge (right) is a storyteller in song. Tales of bootleggers, vote-riggers and general rogues and instructions to his moll to pack her suitcase – and this time do it right – are delivered in the voice of a young man who has seen more of life’s troubles than he probably should have over rhythms that swing and boogie with unstoppable momentum.

Despite the ostensibly downbeat lyrical content, this is joyous music. LaFarge himself can sometimes barely sing for enjoying the rhythms’ feelgood qualities and his confreres’ individual contributions, be they Adam Hoskins’ nimble, exciting guitar runs, Glynn’s energetic slap bass creativity or Ryan “Church Mouse” Koenig’s brilliantly flamboyant washboard playing and river in spate harmonica wizardry.

There’s much improvisation involved, but there are also brilliantly devised arrangements such as the phantom horn section that lifts Garbage Man Blues and the guitar interplay between Hoskins and LaFarge that puts Ain’t the Same aptly in a swing-blues class of its own.

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