Imagine a pre-World War 2 speakeasy where the horn section is as woozy as the patrons.
Picture a voodoo preacher man dressed all in white, hollering, lamenting, crooning and conjuring forth a brand of jungle boogie-woogie equal parts sweat and swing.
Well, that gets close to the music of C.W. Stoneking.
The Australian singer, guitarist and songwriter recently turned 40. Hence, he has been exposed to plenty of ''modern'' music. Yet he seems to exist in another time.
''I got involved in the blues when I was younger. I just liked the guitar playing and lots of things about it. I spent so many years doing it that it's become my thing,'' Stoneking explains via phone earlier this week before embarking on a New Zealand tour that includes a show in Dunedin.
Stoneking is travelling with a stripped-back version of the line-up that featured on his recently released third album, Gon' Boogaloo, his guitar and vocals augmented by harmonies from Paul Kelly's daughters, Maddy and Memphis, and the rhythmic pulse of Andrew Scott (bass) and Jacob Kinniburgh (percussion).
Gon' Boogaloo follows Stoneking's 2008 sophomore effort, Jungle Blues, a breakthrough release that led to appearances at major European festivals as well as spots on Later With Jools Holland and jazz star Jamie Cullum's BBC radio series.
Born in Katherine, Australia, to American parents (his father, Billy Marshall Stoneking, author and screenwriter for TV shows such as Mission Impossible, emigrated in the 1970s) and then raised in an Aboriginal community, Christopher William Stoneking's love of blues-based music arrived early.
He got his first guitar at 11 and honed his skill as a writer and performer in Australia's outback bars.
''I hear things that get me excited,'' Stoneking says of his magpie, retrospective musical approach.
''Sometimes if it hinges on a style of which I'm vaguely aware, I might bother to listen to similar music to see if there's something more in it that I can add.
''Sometimes I might just have a faint notion of what a style sounds like and, if it feels right, I'll leave it at that but, because I write lyrics, I do still get hung up on all the ins and outs of it.
''I try to respect the attitude of each song; if a song seems dreamy, then I'll sing it that way; if it seems stressed-out, then I'll sing it stressed-out.
''It's a funny thing. Some of the tunes on the record I thought, 'oh, that's just a cheap tune'. Others I sweated on for a long time. My records have always had a mixture of part-novelty and darker emotions, me feeling bad.
''It all comes out and I like it that way.''
