Tony Joe White's songs tell more about where he's been and where he's at than any publicity handout could do, They can tell you that he's a rangy cajun with a perpetual sun squint but it's the music that pinpoints the man.
Alligators
"Down in Louisiana where the alligators grow so mean, There lived a girl that I swear to the world, Made the alligators looks tame, Polk Salad Annie; Everybody said it was a shame, 'Cos her momma was a-workin' on the chain gang."
That's from "Polk Salad Annie", the song that first hit in the States for White, born twenty six years ago in Oak Grove, Louisiana. It's that birthplace that has been the biggest influence on White.
"Yeah, man, that's where ma music comes from. Ma folks raised cotton and corn. I spent the first eighteen years of ma life there - real swamp country", he says.
Presley
White arrived in this country last week for a brief promotional visit. He plans to come back in September for an Albert Hall concert and a television special. While he was here he talked about his music and the music he first heard in Louisiana.
"Whem I first had ma band we did a lot of Presley things and Muddy Waters tunes. When I was about seventeen I listened to Lightin' Hopkins and Hooker, it wasn't until I went out on my own that I started writing my own songs..."
"The band I had was me split from the band and a bass player and a drummer. I was about sixteen then and we played all the clubs for about seven years ranging around Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. I played guitar, I have five sisters and a brother and they all play guitar."
After those seven years around the clubs, White decided it was time to go out on his own and write his own songs. His first hit was "Soul Francisco" whitch hit, strangely, on the continent first. "Polk Salad Annie" followed and he hasn't look back in the last eighteen months.
Dusty
His songs have been covered by many people. Brook Benton had a million and more seller with "A Rainy Night In Georgia"; Dusty Springfield cut "Willie And Laura Mae Jones" and both Elvis Presley and Tom Jones have recorded "Polk Salad Annie" on album releases.
White's music is an amalgam of rock, country and soul. Ask him to label it and he's happy with swamp music.
"Everybody calls it 'swamp music' and I like that. I really don't like to analyse it, I just leave it alone. It's just writing about things you know and stories you've heard. Swamp music is fine."
He writes when he feels like it. Maybe once or twice a month, whenever the mood takes him.
"That's the way I've always done it. I always wrote when the feeling came on me. I don't see any reason to change now."
Studios
Tony Joe has had no formal training in music. He stores the Ideas in his mind until it's time to go into the studios to put down more tracks.
"I don't try to write the music. I can't write music. I pick it out on my guitar and sometimes put the words and music down on tape."
And that's fine by anyone who hears it.....
1972.
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