King Hokum
Aussie C.W. Stoneking kicks off weeklong not-to-be-missed residency at the Redwood
By Bliss 08/28/2008
It’s one thing for an artist to sound like he’s stuck in a time warp, hung up on the costumes and sonic dressings of eras long past. It’s quite another for an artist to seem like he’s channeling another time of his own making, one that happens to emulate, say, early 20th-century jazz and blues yet sounds original and relevant to contemporary surroundings.
Such is the case with oddball Australian bluesman C.W. Stoneking, whose outback patois strangely sounds coated in Mississippi mud, more of a piece with train-hopping hobos or field workers from the American South circa 1930 than the Northern Territory where he grew up in the 1970s.
Stoneking places pre-World War II blues, 1920s calypso, early jazz and “hillbilly” music high on his list of seminal influences, but as a child his musical world vision was also partly shaped by living in aboriginal communities, and by listening to his dad’s old folk records. By the time he was a guitar-playing teen he was soaking up the music of Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson and Memphis Minnie. That early acoustic blues style informs his 2005 album “King Hokum,” on which he frequently sounds like he’s growling from the corner of some backwoods gin mill.
Onstage, his personal charisma and droll humor ground any retro appeal in the present moment, despite a sartorial preference for natty suits replete with bow tie, bowler hat and fob watch. More often than not he plays solo, accompanying himself with his steel-bodied resonator guitar, but sometimes he’s backed by his “orchestra,” which may or may not include clarinet, drums, piano, sax, trombone and tuba. His between-song patter can assume the cadence of a medicine show hawker, but in performance, he’s unhurried, conscious of onlookers but absorbed in his own muse as he moans hard-times laments like “Bad Luck Everywhere You Go,” “Dodo Blues” or “Hong Kong Blues” or kicks into more easygoing, speakeasy tempos with “Georgia Rag,” “Goin’ the Country” and “On a Christmas Day.”
The Melbourne-based Stoneking’s ventured into Los Angeleno clubland before. This time, however, he’s returning to promote his new album, “Jungle Blues,” with a weeklong residency at the so-throwback-it’s-hip Redwood Bar, whose pirate-themed décor, polished wood and dim lighting should provide a fitting venue. His final show will also double as a homecoming for local hero Jake La Botz, whose gritty blues-meets-garage-band sound sonically complements Stoneking’s out-of-time vibe.
C.W. Stoneking & His Primitive Horn Orchestra hold down a residency at the Redwood Bar & Grill, 316 W. 2nd St., downtown LA, from Monday through Sept. 8; no admission charge. Call (213) 680-2600 for details. www.myspace.com/cwstoneking
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