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"Could I please be entitled to my own song?"
Amsterdam, Saturday. "I admire those people who sit down with their guitar, cassette-recorder and notes ready, sweating on what once may become a song. For me there's nothing else to do but to wait until the piece of music or text reveals itself. It is as if the songs that I write are actually already written and are floating around somewhere in the universe, until my antennae pick them up." Tony Joe White slowly pulls his tanned face into a pain-stricken wry face, just like a boxer in later life whose muscles - involved in mimics - have become so tough that they have to model the expression that his frame of mind indicates. Professional skill and/or inspiration, according to this man, this is clearly something that comes from above: "It has to be the hand of God that directs the hand of the songwriter as else it cannot be explained that a guy from north Louisiana, with hardly more than a few classes primary school, writes songs that are appreciated by people with another mother-tongue on the other side of the world." "No, I can't say that I clearly show my gratitude towards Him. A few times during the year I jump into my Jeep and drive the 30 miles from my place in Franklin, Tennessee, to Nashville, with a speed that could scare Mario Andretti. Only to visit the local, small church, which is frequented solely by black people, ironically enough it is located within walking distance from Printer's Alley, the warm neighborhood of Nashville." "I go there for the music, I can do without a raging vicar, who needs a sermon of an hour and a half to tell me what will happen to me after my death, something I already have a pretty good idea about. Although … I have the feeling that God loves my kind of people more than the kind that are convinced that they drown in His mercy. Every father secretly loves his most difficult child most, so maybe I am not completely out of luck when I announce myself with my guitar-case at the gate of Heaven." "It has driven Jerry Lee Lewis completely insane, the partying on Saturday, followed by the sobering up on the hard church-benches the following Sunday morning. As did the singing of the Devil's music with his God-given voice. And the cursing, drinking and fucking, as opposed to the canting of religious freaks. In this respect you can hardly call Elvis normal neither." "Did you know that Jerry Lee Lewis intended to kill Elvis? He was arrested when the gun, that he held squeezed between his thigh-bone and the car-door, dropped onto the ground, after a police-officer had opened the door of the car with which Jerry Lee Lewis arrived in Graceland in the midst of the night. He wanted to see Elvis about a remark he had made a few weeks earlier. At that time Jerry Lee came to visit Elvis in Las Vegas, where both of them performed at that time. Jerry Lee said that there was only one rocker who could claim the title of The King, and Elvis replied: "If I am so stupid and if you are so smart, how come that you play in the Lounge and I play in the Main theater?" That was something that Jerry Lee had been thinking about for weeks and now he came to get his justice. Elvis had difficulties enough to fall asleep as it was and he definitely was very reluctant to get out of bed when he did NOT feel like doing so, especially if it was to get shot at. He knew Jerry Lee Lewis for a much longer period than just yesterday! It is not surprising that these guys adored my songs, haha…." Satisfaction "I've written 'Polk Salad Annie' and 'Rainy Night In Georgia' in the same week. I was very pleased with both songs, but I had no idea that due to these two songs I would be able to live a comfortable life for the remaining of my time on Earth. I was seated in the chair of a dentist when 'Rainy Night In Georgia' passed by, in a sweet string-arrangement. I was producing my own rain of blood in the rinsing-tub at that moment, but I couldn't help thinking you've really made it now!" "I still find it unbelievable that two of these typical Southern American songs can appeal to people all over the world. You should know that I worked in a small club in Corpus Christi, Texas, - and six days a week, for ten dollars a night - when I wrote 'Polk Salad Annie' and 'Rainy Night In Georgia'. I did try them out on a public of completely drunk Texans, but immediately received a request, that was supported with broken beer-bottles, to please play 'real country, goddamnit!' I really had nothing with these songs." I only started to appreciate 'Rainy Night In Georgia' when I heard it performed by Brook Benton. That was half a year after I recorded the song myself, which had been the specific request of my wife, and only because I needed a slow song on an album full of 'swamp' music. Brook personified the song in such a way that it was as if he had written the song himself. Elvis stayed much closer to my own version of 'Polk Salad Annie'. But he could let himself go completely in that song, so that, each time that I heard him perform that song, I started to love my own song more." Private Performance "I can admit now that I sometimes drove to Las Vegas to hear Elvis sing 'Polk Salad Annie' live. When he was aware that I was in the audience he turned the show into a private performance that could last up to twenty minutes, actually it was for a sold out theater, but it felt like personal show. Southern boys amongst each other, wouldn't you agree?" "We have often discussed this issue: 'Polk Salad Annie' represented for Elvis the summit of a period that he, for the first time since the famous TV-special, his return on stage in nine years, really enjoyed performing again. This period lasted from say, 'Guitar Man' to 'Suspicious Minds'. When we had these lengthy nightly discussions we could not know that this would be the last good period in his career." "But Elvis or no Elvis, it appears that I will go into history as Tina Turner's songwriter. That is what I have become for the broad audience. And not just for the public. During the promotion-tour for my new album 'Closer To The Truth', even well trained professionals kept on asking me why I recorded 'Steamy Windows'? I always try to answer that question with a joke such as "Tina and I share the same manager" - but I really have to restrain myself to not say "Could I please be entitled to my own song?" |
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7 December 1991 |
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