Crystal Palace party
Tony Joe White is a country bo' trough and trough from his cheeky, ruddy farmers face to his Louisiana drawl. He was brought up in Goodwill, a dusty town with three or four stores and a cotton gin, a country town.
That was until he was eighteen. "Then he split on the road and tried to do something with his music, he and his band The Mojos. It was around 1960 and Elvis Presley was the rage so that if you wanted to earn a living you did it by taking aff the King as closely as possible."
Tony Joe was no exception. "When I first started in clubs, yeah man. I had him down and I'd get up on the tables and I had a microphone tied to my neck so I could really shake. And I did it man... got it on." he said.
He still dips his head with that sly grin or hald sneer that Presley used and uses to such good effect. Only now it's part of his personality and he brushes off the influence because he made it in his own right, made it so well that Elvis keeps recording his numbers. Recently was "Polk Salad Annie" and just three weeks ago he did two more "I've Got A Thing About You Baby" and "For Ol' Times' Sake".
Tony Joe made it on his own though without the band, because he found that he could write songs better when he was on the road by himself, even perform better.
"The main thing is that I get closer with the crowd than I do with a band, because if I have a band I'm awfully in clined to get jamming you know, gettin' digging each other's music - like even turning you back to the crowd and just digging and playing one song for twenty minutes, which I know bores me when somebody does it I'm watching."
But he was 25 before he became successful and for six years he was on the road playing joint and clubs in Louisiana and Texas, sweating it out in small rooms, being ignored, barely heard trhough the smoke, fighting to get paid, to get played. It left him a little confused.
"I know I learnt somethin' because it's like a schoolin'." he said slowly.
Clubs
"I call it a club schoolin' for musicians. I think you really have to do it to be able to take what's going to come later. I dunno, I just learnt.... I learned that I love music." he finished, lamely.
Only three months ago he had one of his worst gigs ever in a Teen Centre in Georgia. "It was just a litlle building not much bigger than a tent and they got a P.A. system set up." he began. "And this guy, the engineer, I don't know what he is, he's got on headphones and he's adjusting the P.A. system to sound good in his headphones! And he's really digging it. He's just sitting ther and all the crowd, they're not even hearing. All they're hearing is every now and then a word. It was just bad."
"They had about 21 pinballmachines in there and bowlingmachines and they didn't even turn them down, and after you've played ten or twelve years and had some hit records and you're kind of getting along in the musicbusiness you don't put up with that shit no more - you did it. I've done it for nine years." he blinked hard in annoyance.
Sometimes of course, it's Tony himself who screws ir up, though there's not much he can do about it. It's just that when he's in Europe his all American, down home accent and the cowboy boots are occasionally just a little to much for some audiences.
"I don't like to think about it one way or the other." he said, then referring to the Crystal Palace party, he went on. "because it was really a pretty day and I'd come along ways to play some music and I was just trying to keep my mind on playing and not thinking about the many miles between that and y'all's environment. I just tried to get on because it just felt good."
"There've been a lot of times when I knew I wasn't going down over in Europe because I was too American and people just didn't know what I was saying - especially in France."
Nevertheless, he has not been afraid to launch into film making, though without any previous experience. He is playing the part of Cassio in the fimversion of "Catch My Soul", the rock musical of Shakespeare's Othello.
Why did they choose him? "Lord knows, I don't know." he replied with a slight shrug.
"Jack Good chose me about two years ago. Patrick McGoohan directed. He called me down to Santa Fe to talk so that we could do it, and I went in there and I said, 'look I'm just a musician, ma, I've never acted, I don't know how to act and I don't ever learned to be.' He said, 'I don't want somebody who knows how to act'. So me and him hit off right from the start."
Soulful
"You know Patrick is a funky guy, really a soulful cat. He has just a knack for making people like myself feel really good. Like I've never even been in front af a camera and he would come up to me later and say to me, 'that was really great. It was really good and the only time I'm going to say anything to you is when you're not being yourself'. He didn't try to make me anything."
And Tony Joe sat back and grinned contentedly.
1973.
IF THE SUN shines brightly, if the breeze is light and warm, and if the bees buzz then I've a hunch that Tony Joe White might be just a show stealer at MM's Crystal Palace Garden Party next Saturday.
Tony's mellow glowing voice has the slow burn of Southern Comfort. 'Cept Confort starts its fire in the throat, Tony warms the feet, nudges them into action with irresistably funky songs, and the gentle heat filters op through the body. The boy;s got soul.
At the Albert Hall in the winter of '71 Tony Joe played on the same bill as Creedence Clearwater Revival and his performance with his band sure kept the show's toppers on their toes.
This time, says Tony's record company, he'll be doing the whole set as solo artist.
White was born in Oakville Louisiana and his music has always possessed that indelible stamp of Louisiana swamp. The hot, steamy drawl of the voice; the loose feel of the song; the tight compulsive funk of the rhythm.
He started out by singing Muddy Waters, and Elvis Presley songs in a small band (that was when he was about 16-17; he's 29 now) but soon got to listening to the blues of John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins.
Finally, he started working with just a bass player and drummer. Things got funky. The feeling was right and Tony started writing some tunes.
He started recording his own songs and the hits began. "Soul Francisco" broke or rather melted the ice but it wasn't until he came up with songs like "A Rainy Night In Georgia" (a million seller for Brooke Benton), "Willie And Laura Mae Jones"(a hit for Presley recently as June this year), that Tony wholly established himself.
So be prepared for Tony Joe White to turn y'all onto some pure lazy Southern funk. He'll turn any ole houn' dawg into a swampfox easy.
Sept 1973.
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