HMC Choice
When Kris Kristoffersen re-recorded all his old hits a few years back, he said that he had done it so because singing them for 30 years, he now understood the songs in a way he hadn't when he wrote them. The same could surely be said bij the Alabama swamp-rock pioneer Tony Joe White of these re-workings of his classics such as Rainy Night in Georgia, Did Somebody Make A Fool Uot Of You and Taking The Midnight Train.
Always a man whose records oozed depth and flavour, the voice is even deeper and the guitar even funkier than on the originals - you can tell he's lived inside these songs and has invested them with all the weight of experience over the intervening years. But Uncovered is not just about reheating past glories. Several new compositions also rise to the fore, including a superb collaboration with JJ Cale on the slow-burning, blues Louveldo. Other star guest from whom White blags a favour include Eric Clapton, the late Waylon Jennings and Mark Knopfler.
Funkier than a swamp dog's dangly bits.
**** uncut
Sep/Oct 2006
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