Grab your dancing shoes, Pokey LaFarge is coming to NCMA Winston-Salem!
Sunday, October 12, 2025 @ 6:00 pm | McChesney Scott Dunn Auditorium
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POKEY LAFARGE
After crisscrossing the nation for the last half-decade looking for a home, Pokey LaFarge found himself in Mid-Coast Maine. Upon arriving, the Illinois-born singer/songwriter/actor pursued a major life change, working 12-hour days on a local farm—a turn of events that catalyzed an extraordinary burst of creativity and redefined his sense of purpose as an artist. On his new album Rhumba Country, LaFarge reveals his newly heightened devotion to making music that channels pure joy. "There was a time when I glorified sadness because I lost sight of who I was, but now I understand that creating and expressing joy is my gift, and gifts are meant to be shared." Reclaiming his voice, LaFarge has recorded his boldest album yet.
Rhumba Country was initially shaped from material that emerged while LaFarge was deep in work on the farm. "I'd be pushing a plow or scattering seeds, and the songs would just come to me," he recalls. "It was tremendously inspirational and made me realize that apart from singing, farming is perhaps the oldest human art form." But as he moved forward with his songwriting, something felt undeniably amiss. LaFarge then spoke with fellow Midwestern transplant Elliot Bergman (Wild Belle), who suggested he return to city life in Los Angeles for a season so that the two musicians could work together—a collaboration that soon brought the rhumba to LaFarge's country.
As he immersed himself in the album's creation, LaFarge began dreaming up a kaleidoscopic sound informed by his love of music from far-ranging eras and corners of the globe, including mambo, tropicália, rocksteady, and mid-century American rock-and-roll. Co-produced along with Chris Seefried and Bergman and recorded in L.A., the resulting Rhumba Country is an invitation to come together to celebrate life and love. "The songs that naturally come to me are upbeat and make you wanna dance or at least bop your head—they're all very colorful," says LaFarge.
"I used to think of my music in dark blue, but now I see it in technicolor."
Crossroads Concert Series
"NCMA Winston-Salem's Crossroads concert series has secured a firm foothold as one of the Piedmont's most innovative – and maybe even the Triad's premiere – concert series." – Ryan Snyder, Yes! Weekly
Launched in 2011, the Crossroads concert series aims to provide attendees with an extraordinary evening of music, art, food and drink featuring world-class musicians in an intimate concert environment.
To date, the series has hosted Dan Tyminski, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Leon Russell, Jim White, The South Memphis String Band, David Grisman & Del McCoury, Charles Walker & the Dynamites, Bill Frisell, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Justin Townes Earle, Phil Cook, David Holt Band, Amythyst Kiah, Lonnie Holley, Ben Sollee, Caleb Caudle, Loamlands, Dean & Britta, William Tyler, Patterson Hood, Hiss Golden Messenger, Odyssey 5, Love Language, Estrangers, Chris Stamey, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Night Moves, and Sunny War.