LP-album

TONY JOE WHITE, Closer To The Truth, Remark (D 30703)

The real Tony Joe White must have been put on ice about 19 years. Since the outstanding but understated
Home Made Ice Cream (1973), the man who almost singularly defined the swamp rock genre with
"Polk Salad Annie" and "Roosevelt And Ira Lee" continued writing but released non-essential albums like
Eyes, The Real Thang and Dangerous. An album's worth of material with Booker T and the MG's in 1975
sadly stayed in the vaults. Purhaps four songs on Tina Turner's Foreign Affair (1990) did the trick

Whatever, the old swampfox is back with a small Muscle Shoals rhythm section and the effects are a musical promised land of blues-spiced swamp soul replete with solid drumming for Roger Hawkins and White's guitar- induced "swamp box" and "whomper-stomper" and that forlorn harmonica.

Any compromises are cleverly crafted into his trademark sound of deep, breathy vocals found in the title track. The intro to the very powerful "Closer To The Truth" a stark critique of modern greed that exhibits a Daniel Lanois style production with its broad keyboard layers and sustained guitar lines, is a veritable highlight.

And so is the lascivious "Steamy Windows" with its lusty images that celebrated recent status on Tina Turner's last album.
The bluesy mood of "Ain't Going Down This Time" is deceptively brilliant and ultimately posive as the narrative explains the singer's loneliness, while the chilling irony reveals his determination to avoid such a bleak, personal state. Meanwhile, White demonstrates his fluent guitar skills, a consistent strength on this one-hour album.

The sound is tough and the lyrics potent. "I thought I saw Robert Johnson walking out across the field" discribes the ambience of the mediumrocking "Tunica Motel". And it's that ambience that recalls his first album for Warner Brothers in 1970, simply titled Tony Joe White, where he thanked his father Charlie White for the soulful licks on "My Kind Of Woman".

He keeps it in the family once more by thanking his wife and children "for helping me to stay on the path of a decent groove". That decent groove is the total hallmark of "Closer To The Truth", where the simple magic of Muscle Shoals kept everything consistent, be it Hawkins' varied and perfect timing or the keyboards of both Steve Nathan and the unassuming legend, Spooner Oldham.

It's this small ensemble that prevents White from remaining crestfallen, allowing him the space to display the distant harmonica nuances troughout the bridge of "Cool Town Woman" that combine magically with his deft, electric and acoustic guitar fills and Hawkins rhythmic spoons.

After too many years meandering near the bottom of the rock 'n' roll mountain, Tony Joe White has taken that first giant step. The currency of "Closer To The Truth" is a disciplined dedication to a stringent formula of singing, writing, playing and producing. And the quality is both satisfying and excellent.

Terence Reilly, 1991.

TONY JOE WHITE, Closer To The Truth, Remark 511 386

If anyone invented swamp rock, it was Tony Joe White. In the late '60s he provided material for Elvis Presley (Polk Salad Annie), Dusty Springfield (Willie and Laura Mae Jones) and Brook Benton (Rainy Night In Georgia).
Apart from the songs, which generally concerned things torrid and rural in his native Louisiana, his trademark was a deep, dark, furry vocal style.

Having contributed Steamy Windows to Tina Turner's Foreign Affair, he's cut a management deal with her mentor Roger Davies and, on the evidence of Closer To The Truth, is back in fine form, albeit just a hair's breadth from self-parody.

Tunica Motel, Love m.D., Bi-Yo Woman and Undercover Agent For The Blues tell stories of lubricious romantic encounters and their promise is delivered by a band comprising old Muscle Shoals hands Roger Hawkins, Davis Hood and Spooner Oldham, who provide a strong but supple tempo against which White is want to lean as he rumbles, growls and opens the lid of his "swamp box".****

David Hepworth, 1991.