Tales from Afar

If you heard Australian bluesman C.W. Stoneking’s first album, King Hokum, then you will know what to expect from his second: Jungle Blues.

If you heard Australian bluesman C.W. Stoneking’s first album, King Hokum, then you will know what to expect from his second: Jungle Blues. If you didn’t, then let me point out that Stoneking is a prize mimic. With a banjo in his hands, and the wail of a Howlin’ Wolf or Robert Johnson in his throat, this 36-year-old (white) man (raised by American parents in an Aboriginal community) sets about recreating every lurch and inflection of 1920s blues and calypso music. The horns swoon, the drums shuffle — and you’d swear you can hear the crackle of old vinyl, dusty between its grooves.

It might be easy to dismiss this as pastiche were it not for the charm of Stoneking’s compositions. This is a storyteller at work, indulging his audience with malarial tales of Africa, the South Seas and other places more imagined than experienced. The title track sets the tone with its first line, ‘That’s right, folks, who knows what strange wonders await our expeditioners on this journey to the dark corners of the globe?’ And, from there on, those expeditioners encounter everything from a yodelling lion to General MacArthur, the ‘son of America’. There is even space for some modern sensibilities, as in the wry ‘Housebound Blues’ sung by Stoneking’s real-life partner.

By the time it comes to a raucous close, Jungle Blues has elevated itself to something more than simple nostalgia. After all, good music is good music — whenever it’s played.

C.W. Stoneking’s Jungle Blues (kinghokum) is out now.