With flaming-red locks, a reputation for being one of Australia's most promising blues guitarists, the ability to attract some of the scene's most respected players into his band and more than 2000 gigs notched up like crowded studs on a leather belt, James Southwell cuts a striking figure on paper and in person.
Without a stylist or a decent promotional photo highlighting that luminous strawberry mane, the 28-year-old has been mistaken more than once for some kind of metal freak. And that's before discovering his first album was called Dark Angel.
"I think it was 2006 I recorded that," says the keen and articulate Southwell, betraying the slightest hint of regret. "I was fresh out of high school."
In the ensuing decade came more CDs, including two live ones. Now 2017 is earmarked for Southwell to deliver "the first album I feel really good about". Called The Dockside Sessions, it represents a leap forward.
Blues remains centre stage, but new songs such as See The Light show a funky side and even feature a breakneck spoken-word rap by world-renowned harmonica player Jason Ricci.
The album was recorded at Dockside Studios, a four-hectare residential recording sanctuary in the swamplands of Louisiana. Southwell decamped there in July last year with a band featuring bassist Charlie Wooton, also The Dockside Sessions' producer.
"It's a completely magical place," Southwell says of the studio, run by Steve Nails. "I woke up one morning to [this phone] message, 'Steve said he's going to drop off Lucille for you to play today'."
Lucille is the name blues legend BB King gave his guitars.
"I thought, that's impossible. It didn't make any sense that a ginger from Bowning, NSW, was going to be playing BB King's guitar that day."
Legend has it, BB King began naming all his guitars Lucille after rescuing his first from a blazing venue, inside of which two men were fighting over a woman with that name.
"I tuned it up, gave it a bit of a spray of oil and got a bit of a sound through the amp," Southwell says. "And Charlie said, 'OK, let's take a pass at Give Up.' "
After one take on the song, Southwell lay the guitar down, closed the case and went to the studio's control room to listen.
"I never opened the case again! That guitar you hear is the first time I played it and the last.
"It was a magic experience because I don't normally play a guitar like that. I normally play 10-gauge strings on a Stratocaster with a high action and this was probably 11- or 12-gauge strings – like fence wire – on a Gibson with a really low action. So it didn't suit my playing style. When I listen to [that song], it doesn't sound like I'm playing guitar.
"It was a really spiritual, out-of-body experience."
It wasn't the only one. "Dockside is an old barn," Southwell says. "Upstairs is where you stay. There are four rooms above the studio… and there's a story of a ghost who lives in one."
There are also the ghosts of earlier artists who have recorded there. The roll call is impressive: from Mavis Staples, Dr John and BB King to Keb' Mo' and Snarky Puppy.
"The whole place just vibrates with [their] energy… It inspires the most incredible stuff to come out of you."
The James Southwell Band, supported by Chris Wilson, play on February 16 at The Basement, Circular Quay; $27.40.