sizeable and largely word of mouth reputation is such that his fans allow frequently erratic and inconsistent album releases on the strength of occasional gems like the Deep South, White Funk-pioneering classic "Polk Salad Annie" or the gentler, more lyrical "Rainy Night In Georgia".
You would expect something like the "Best Of Tony Joe White" to be dynamic, full of killer tracks (from previous elpees, demonstrating what a fine piece of Stoned-Out-Southern Soul the guy really is.
Unfortunately, as this album shows, the only things Tony Joe really has going for him are "Polk Salad", "Roosevelt and Ira Lee" and "Rainy Night". That's three songs out of thirteen, on a "Best Of" collection, natch.
Of course, most of the others are pretty famous. "Willie ande Laura Mae Jones", "Soul Francisco", "Groupy Girl" and "Save Your Sugar For Me" were all hits for someone, even if Tony Joe didn't score with them himself.
But they are all merely rehashes of White's one-and-a-half basic songs, and Billy Swan's single garage-like production, which was so effective on "Polk Salad", only serves to accentuate the similarities.
After three of Tony Joe's clumsy, careless and often trite songs played in identical keys, and featuring the same chord sequences topped off with an embarasingly cloying Southern sentimentality, this album begins to bore.
Unlike J.J. Cale, for whom a song never seems as important as the feel, we can't even rely on Tony Joe White's abilities as a musician to inject much extra life into this set.
As a supposedly important guitar stylist, he is very limited indeed. Presumptious and unimaginative, he has none of Cale's subtlety and little of Waylon Jennings' true grit. And his wah-wah is just awful.
In compiling this album, Dave Walters, Martin Jennings and John Tobler have concentrated on Tony Joe White's raunchier side.
Had they seen fit to include "Aspen Colorado" and "The Migrant", where White sings slowly and coherently, the warmth in his voice strangely assisted by some fine strings arangements, this "Best Of..." album would have been more accurately titled.
January 24 1976
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