Robert Connely Farr & the Rebeltone Boys
Dirty South Blues

The highest compliment one might pay Dirty South Blues is by asking the question “Where the hell does Robert Connely Farr think he’s from?” His mailing address reads somewhere in Vancouver’s East Village, but goddamn if his third full-length doesn’t sound like the work of someone raised in the muddy fields of America’s Deep South. We’re talking a triumphant mix of swamp-sick guitars, swirling Muscle Shoals organ, and world-weary vocals—all anchored by gutbucket bass and drums.

How can one West Coast white guy sound so authentic? Turns out that Farr was born and raised in Bolton, Mississippi, his obsession with getting the blues right evidently a lifelong endeavour; last year he studied with Bentonia, Mississippi, legend Jimmy “Duck” Holmes (whose swaggering “Just Jive” he updates here).

Backed by his Rebeltone Boys, Farr sweats like Saturday afternoon at the roadhouse on “Blue Front Cafe”, turns the spotlight on America’s troubled past with the emotionally charged “Magnolia”, and takes things down to an opiated crawl with “Lady Heroin”.

No matter how he’s playing things on Dirty South Blues—hanging in the moonshine shed, or kicking back on the porch—this is blues at its realest and rawest. Postal codes be damned—sometimes you don’t have to leave town to discover the scarily authentic real deal.