Tony Joe White
The Beginning
Swamp Records #8139

by Bonny Holder

On first play, I liked this CD so much it frightened me. One guitar. One voice, gravelly and growly and low and not always on key.

His music embodies the attractive feeling of foreboding, like John Lee Hooker's does. This is how I've always wanted to hear J.J. Cale recorded! right in my face, right between the ears (and some place south of that.) You can tell that this man is his music, there seems to be no separation between his mind, his voice, his fingers. This is the stuff that every kid singing the blues in her or his bedroom can only pray to end up playing.

And I'm thinkin' ­ Tony Joe White. Seems like I've heard that name all my life, but I have no idea whatsoever of who this guy is, so I hit the internet, to come up with two interesting TJW-facts:

1) "Polk Salad Annie" (gator's got yer granny, UH!) I always thought it was "poke" but nevermind, this is the guy who did that song (1969), and even more impressive to me,

2) This is the guy who WROTE, "Rainy Night in Georgia", a hit for Brook Benton in 1970 and one of the most evocative lyrics ever.

I am now on my knees. This guy is still making music?? We are much too fortunate.

Mr. White, now in his 50's, made it bigger in Europe & Australia than he has here. He's been recorded by Tina Turner and others who have probably kept him from needing a day job for the past thirty years. He has more than a dozen albums to his credit, and to some fans who go way-back, he is known as the "squint-eyed Cajun" and "Swamp Fox."

Check first lyrics on this amazing CD, in which you learn that this is NOT going to be your father's delta blues:

Got a telephone call this mornin',
My baby wrecked her Mercedes Benz.
She called me up this mornin'
Totaled out her Mercedes Benz.
I said, "Long as you're alright,
Baby that's all that matters,
Let 'em tow the thing on in."

My favorite cut is #6, "More To This Than That", in which Mr. White expresses his relationship to music:

Times are movin' kinda fast
I been hanging out in the past
Livin' in a world of high tech
With an old guitar hangin' 'round my neck

Pre-hysterical.

Buzzards circlin' overhead
Ought to give it up, I must be dead.
If this is the end of me,
Just keep the guitars in the family.
Don't put 'em under glass & tune 'em flat
There ought to be more to this, than that.

If you're ready to listen to the most honest music you've heard in a while, and lyrics that will stay in your mind for a long time, The Beginning is the CD for you. And then you, like me, will shake your head and wonder: Where have I been all these years? Share the joy. Buy one for a friend.

On his website, Mr. White says of The Beginning:

"This album has been with me for most of my life. Through the years, people have always asked if I would ever do it. It is now finished. I started in early fall and finished in late winter. I left 3 microphones plugged up in the studio, in the old house with the high ceilings and wooden floors, and the guitar and harmonicas were always close at hand.

"I would go for long periods of time without touching either, and then some days the feeling would be right, and I would sit down and let the music out. This is all
the freedom I could ever hope for."

You can order his stuff directly from the Man himself:
www.tonyjoewhite.net/music.html



You can contact Bonny Holder at bonny-at-rockzilla.net

 
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