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Music publisher Bob Beckham was nursing a hangover and in no mood for music when a handsome Louisiana youngster was ushered into his office. "Bad hung", recalls the gruff-voiced businessman. "Tequila, as I recall. And that's the worst".

"It was around 9:30 in the morning and I'd been at a recording session and then drinking half the night before. My secretary came in and said, 'There's a guy out there who want to play you some songs. I think you should listen'. I said, ' Oh shit. Okay. Send him in'".

At first, Beckham barely lifted his eyelids to look at the latest contestant in the Nashville-music sweepstakes. But when he saw the lean hopeful's dark eyes, his own widened. "I took one look at him and said, 'Son, if you can hum, you're a star.' He just had that look about him".

"I was playing a lot of blues back then", recalls Tony Joe White. "Beckham really got into it. It was a lucky thing, too - I was probably the only human being in Nashville that was playing anything like that, and he was probably the only human being in town who would listen to it".

Thus, the sound of the Swamp Fox was born.

What Beckham discovered that morning in 1967 was one of pop music's great minimalist. To this day, Tony Joe White needs nothing but his 'whomper stomper' guitar and a microphone in front of him to hypnotize a crowd. His husky, get-down, growling voice and snakey, sinuous guitar leads have mesmerized millions. His softly smoldering Southern style has made American classics of 'Polk Salad Annie' and 'Rainy Night In Georgia'. His charismatic, broodingly sexual appeal has made him an international music idol who still tours Europe annually.

Unlike most of the swamp rockers of the late 60's and early 70's, Tony Joe is a true son of the South. Born in 1943, he was one of seven children raised on a cotton farm near Oak Grove, Louisiana.

"I was the youngest. The music in the house was made by my dad and mom, my sisters and my brother - a lot of gospel, a little bit of country. They all played guitar and piano. Even though I was around music every day, I never did get into it. I just didn't care - I was into baseball".

That all changed when Tony Joe was 16. Charles, the oldest of the White children, brought home a Lightnin' Hopkins album and began demonstrating blues guitar to his baby brother.

"That completely turned me around. That's when I started playing and forgot completely about baseball".

Inspired by the examples of Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Elvis Presley, Tony Joe began performing at school dances. After graduation it was on to night clubs in Louisiana and Texas - first as Tony and The Mojos, then as Tony and The Twilights.

"Memphis was actually closer, but I came right on through it because my brother wanted to see me here, in Nashville. He thought this was a lot more popular place. So I got a room at Miss Bligh's boarding house over on West End - real soulful lady. She said, 'I get a lot of you kind of boys stayed here'. Then I went down Lower Broadway and everbody there discouraged me. Went back to the room about 'bluesed-out', but when I walked in to see Beckham the next day, he looked up at me and said, 'You come all the way up from Texas to play me your songs?' And I said, 'Yeah'. And he said, 'Well, I'll damn well hear 'em'".

The lean blues troubadour began to sing and in hours Backham had him in a studio. Within weeks, Tony Joe White was signed to Monument Records with Billy Swan as his producer.

The first few singles went unnoticed, but then 'Soul Francisco' broke in - of all places - Paris, France. In August 1968 Monument got a cable from overseas requesting a rush shipment of Tony Joe White records, bios and photos. A few days later the radio station in Monte Carlo played 'Soul Francisco' and during the next 30 minutes received more than 100 phone calls from listeners wanted to hear it again. Fans in Belgium were soon clamoring for Tony Joe White appearances at their discotheques. Radio stations in Germany, Spain, Japan and the Philippines picked up the tune, too.

"I often wonder about that", says Tony Joe. "Why did it start in Paris? Especially in those days - they didn't understand English at all. But I would watch these people talk and dance around when I was playing over there. They were just dancing their hearts out. I knew they couldn't understand what I was singing, but they felt what I was singing. I used to see guys and woman dressed up like some of the characters in my songs, even in rural France and places way out in the woods. There's a lot of swampy people over there".

Meanwhile, Tony Joe had been promoting his 'Polk Salad Annie' single in the clubs around Corpus Cristi. The record, which had been out for nine months, had been written off by Monument as a dud.

"They had done given up on it, but we kept getting all these people in Texas coming to the club and buying the record. So we would send up to Nashville saying, 'Send us a thousand more this week'. They would send us these 'Do Not Sell' samples, so we would have to sit down and mark out the 'Do Not Sell' and then send them to the record stores. All these stores in South Texas kept calling our house saying, 'We need more'. So we just kept hanging on. And finally a guy in L.A. picked it up and got it across. Otherwise, 'Polk' could have been lost forever".

The single entered the U.S. charts in July 1969, climbing into the pop Top Ten by early fall. It was followed by 'Roosevelt And Ira Lee' and 'Save You Sugar For Me' - both minor hits of 1969-70.

He toured with Steppenwolf, Sly and the Family Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival and other big rock acts of the 70's. At the same time, an impressive lineup of superstars began recording his distinctive, tough-to-classify compositions: Dusty Springfield ('Willie And Laura Mae Jones'), Elvis Presley ('I've Got A Thing About You, Baby'), Brook Benton ('Rainy Night In Georgia') and Tina Turner ('Steamy Windows') gave them the pop treatment; Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett gave them the R&B touch, and George Jones, Hank Williams Jr., Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed and Jessi Colter did 'em Country.

His songwriting secret, if he has one, is honesty: "The characters in the songs are real. I knew most of 'em. 'Polk Salad Annie' - there were a couple of girls I knew that fit to a T. I just changed their names. Old Man Roosevelt, Ira Lee, Willie, all those guys were real".

Three Tony Joe White albums on Monument (1969-70), three on Warner Bros. (1971-73) and one each on 20th Century (1976), Casablanca (1980) and Columbia (1983) are now all collectibles, for he has attained the status of a true cult figure. Since 1986 he has been successfully marketing albums from his home south of Nashville, issued on his own Swamp Fox label.

Over the years, Tony Joe White has acquired the reputation of a Deep South individualist - a brilliant eccentric whose homemade works have enspired passionate reviews and an underground following. "I never cared to learn much about 'show business' - I'm still kind of green and crisp. I think if you spent too much time learning all that, there's no telling how many good songs you might cancel out".

"When I look back now, I guess it was pretty different to be doing what I was doing and sounding like I was sounding. I haven't changed a whole lot; I'm almost like a lone wolf out there. I just play my guitar and don't worry about it. They don't know if I'm black, white, country or rock".

And he isn't about to ruin that Southern-gumbo mystique.
Says Tony Joe White: "If you have to explain it to them, you've lost it".

Robert K. Oermann, Nashville 1993.