The last time blues roots artist Tony Joe White toured Australia he left crowds mesmerised with his delta blues affection and his rustic country rock.
White was born in 1943 and began working clubs in Texas before be moved to Nashville in 1968 to kick start a career in music. He has worked with Tina Turner on her 1989 album, "Foreign Affairs" and toured with Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker.
White's Australian tour coincides with his new album, "One Hot July". For those who remember White's classic 1969 debut album "Monument, Black and White", will no doubt recall the hits that rose from the album, "Polk Salad Annie" and "Roosevelt And Ira Lee (Night of the Moccasin)".
This is your chance to immerse yourself in the smooth country and blues tunes White is renowned for. He is sure to play some classic back catalogue hits.
Back in 1969, when making the radio charts meant something, Tony Joe White had a hit with "Polk Salad Annie", a backwoods tale of a wild child told to a swamp blues beat. Thirty years on, the man is still making music that smells of rain and dirt and musty heat, music that is still every bit as fresh and real as the first songs he recorded. Not only a master of the form, Tony Joe White is a seminal influence on some of the great rock acts. Hear Mark Knopfler, for instance, on any number of this album's tracks, especially "Crack The Window Baby"; or Creedence on "Gumbo John"; or J.J. Cale on "Across From Midnight" and even the Stones circa "Sticky Fingers" on "The Delta Singer". The singer/songwriter/guitarist calls "One Hot July" his best album yet. You better believe him.
Few artists can fix a place to a sound and a sound to a feeling as well as Tony Joe White. Think of his "Rainy Night In Georgia" and you will know exactly what I mean. On this album, he sticks to the pared back blues that he plays so wonderfully, filling the thick air with just the right spare notes in just the right places. Though most of the tunes are stories set to a blues beat, "I Believe I've Lost My Way" is a real blues in sense and sound. Some drums, a guitar and a faint organ is all he needs to wring tears from a song that admits to a wandering in the soul and a yearning in the heart.
He may be lazy-lidded and soft growlin', but that doesn't mean he can't get your body moving. Try keeping still to "Don't Overdo It" or "Goin' Down Rockin' ". He gets that tom-tom drumbeat going, sticks guitar on top and around it, throws some harmonica down and your knees and feet do the rest. Even his voice is an underrated instrument. Usually smoky, always soulful, on the title track it is as dark and thick and slow-moving as molasses.
"One Hot July" is one cool album. Tony Joe White fans will find more of the same but better on this CD and newcomers will have the joy of hearing him for the first time, as millions did 30 years ago when the still-fabulous "Polk Salad Annie" whacked them between the ears.
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