Interview winter 1999
and the legendary Tony Joe White is telling me down the line that things are "Startin’ to bud out, warmin’ up man!" That unmistakable southern drawl, first heard internationally on 1969’s "Polk Salad Annie" is already in story telling mode.
For three decades Tony Joe has been the perennial story teller, bringing characters to life with his down home brand of smooth-as-whiskey Southern blues. Composing hits for the likes of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and more recently Tina Turner and Joe Cocker has allowed him the freedom to make records in his own good time and with no concessions to the musical fads of the day.
Remarkably with a sound that epitomises the essence of the swamplands, with "One Hot July" White has just recorded for the first time in his home state of Louisiana.
Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips asked him why the return home has been so long coming...
"You know I really can’t answer that. It’s like it’s my home state and it’s the first time I’ve ever went back there. The guy that owns that studio there in Bogalusa, Louisiana, all these years, he kept sending me his brochures on that ol’ studio. I was always in Muscle Shoals or Memphis or Nashville or LA. Finally with this new batch of songs I just decided I wanted to go back to my home state, get down in them swamps and record it. I felt like something magic might happen and it did. I don’t know why it took so long though."
The pictures on your CD cover define what I imagine the swamplands to be like, was it like that where you grew up?
Yeh it’s kinda like that around my parts now too. I was kinda in the north end, the Delta part, but we had to go through the rivers and swamps. That picture on the back is down close to a little town called Napoleonville outside of New Orleans about 40 miles.
You like to write about characters. Are they always real people?
Mostly all the characters through the years have been real, every one of them, from Polk Salad Annie to Gumbo John (a character in a song off the new album who used to play guitar until his pet alligator Clyde took a liking to his fingers). In fact that shack where I’m sittin’ on the porch on the back of the album cover, that’s Gumbo John’s shack. He owns the house and right across the road is his cafe right on the water.
Another character you sing about on One Hot July is the Conjure Woman, but I notice the copyright on that is from 1970?
I did it back in the ‘Polk’ days but never really cut it the way I wanted to cut it. There was something about going back to Louisiana and gettin’ back in them swamps. That studio is in the middle of 50 acres of swampland and it’s an old log house that this guy has had since early 60’s. I said man this is where I need to re-do the Conjure Woman. There’s still a lot of that (Voodoo) still going on down there.
What is your songwriting process?
Most of the time it’s like a guitar lick will start it for me. I’ll be playing the guitar, then once I get an idea I’ll build me a little camp fire outside, get a couple of six packs of cold beer and sit out there with the guitar and work a while. But I usually wait for a guitar lick comes or a title or a line. I don’t never just sit down and say I’m going to write a song, something has to happen first. I’ve got a little 16 track here in my studio and when I get ready to put it down, me and my drummer ‘Boom Boom’, will come in and lay something down. The songs and the lines usually stick in my head if they’re good enough.
Tell me about your studio.
It’s a 16 track, a little analogue with the hiss on the tape, a real warm little studio. Sometimes my demos are hard to get past. But in this particular instance down in Louisiana with the old tube microphones, it was just a great old place in the middle of the woods. It fit me to the tee.
I tell you man, it’s like a lot of the songs were one takes. Just me and my drummer and bass player and Doctor Gloom on the B3 organ, turn the tape on, we’d play it and that would be it. I might overdub a little guitar or harmonica later but at least 6 or 7 of them were one takes. I cut the whole thing in 3 nights so you know that something had to be happening down there.
Have you been using the same guitar all these years?
It’s an old Strat. I’ve had it for a long time. I don’t know how long and I’ve got an old ‘58. The one I use mostly is a ‘61. I used a Spanish guitar on a couple of tunes on this album. It’s a ‘69 Spanish that I write a lot of tunes on. That’s the one I carry out to the camp fire. The amplifier is a Blues Deville.
Do you use many effects?
Only the old whomper, the old boomerang wha and a thing called a Colourtone that I bought in London England back in ‘69. I use those two and that’s about it.
Generally you don’t tamper with your recorded guitar too much?
No because generally what happens is while I’m singin’ and playin’ at the same time with the bass and organ and drums, usually the guitar has to be really watched and protected. Off hand It’s doin’ things I really don’t know how to go back and do again. I might surround it with a little lick here and there but not too much. In fact why I like this album so much is what I didn’t play that really counted. I left a lot of breathin’ room.
Is it difficult for you to say that a record is finally finished and not want to do anything else to it?
You know I have a really great cut-off valve man when I’m through with one in the studio. Even in the early days, when it’s making everyone feel good and we’re all smiling and standin’ around listening to it, the musicians and I, I know it’s through right then. I don’t keep trying to tangle with it.
Does it surprise you that your music, which is so deeply rooted in the American South is so universally accepted?
You know it all started in Paris,France before anywhere. Even before "Polk Salad Annie" I had a hit record there. It shocked me. I was doing interviews with disc jockeys over the phone in France, I had a number one record in Paris, France and I was still playing in a little club in Corpus Christi, Texas for ten dollars a night. All of a sudden the music had jumped across the ocean. But there’s no way to manufacture that, the music will find its way.
I don’t never worry about the charts or the radio play I just play the way I feel and to get to do that is very lucky.
Tell me about Elvis, how often did you come across him?
We hooked up two or three times in Las Vegas and Memphis when he was recording "Polk" and "Got A Thing About You Baby". He flew us out to Las Vegas, my wife and I went to see him record "Polk Salad Annie" live at the Hilton Hotel. We hung out for a day or two. He always treated me really good. He said he felt like he wrote "Polk Salad Annie". We shared pretty close times together sittin’ and talkin’ about the songs and the South. He always treated me cool.
Who else would you like to record with?
Me and Mark Knopfler and also Clapton have talked about doin’ something together. We all keep saying every year, well we gonna do somethin? Every year goes by we don’t but I hope that it will happen sooner or later ... and also J.J. Cale. There’s one other that I want to do something with and that’s Sade. I’ve always really loved her voice and her writing. She’s a great writer. We all have the same manager (Australian Roger Davies who used to manage Sherbet), Tina and me and Joe Cocker. So we’re always listening to each others stuff. Every now and then I’ll write a little love ballad or cool, little smooth thing and I think I’d love to hear Sade sing that. I’d love to play guitar with her and let her sing one.
winter 1999.
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