Tony Joe White

American Songwriter interview

Tony Joe discusses his live show and new album The Shine with American Songwriter's Davis Inman. Click here to read the full interview.





Rod Stewart Covers "Rainy Night In Georgia"

Rod Stewart recorded a version of "Rainy Night in Georgia" for his latest album SoulBook. The Grammy Award winning Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer's latest release is a collection of classic soul favorites from the '60s and '70s. The album is available on CD and for download from iTunes.





Chris Young and George Benson cover "Rainy Night In Georgia"

Country singer Chris Young and jazz vocalist & guitarist George Benson are the latest to provide their own renditions of Tony Joe White’s “Rainy Night In Georgia.” Coming on the heels of his self-titled debut, Young’s The Man I Want To Be features a one-take version of “Rainy Night In Georgia” at the suggestion of producer James Stroud. Ten-time Grammy winner Benson’s latest release Songs and Stories features covers of songs penned by some of his favorite songwriters including James Taylor, Smokey Robinson, Lamont Dozier, Tony Joe White, and Bill Withers.





Los Lonely Boys record "Polk Salad Annie"

Texas trio Los Lonely Boys' newest release 1969: A Tribute to a Great Year of Music includes Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie.” 1969 also features hits by Carlos Santana, The Beatles, and The Doors. The album is available on CD and for download from iTunes.





Tony Joe White songs on CSI

The CBS hit television series CSI featured Tony Joe White songs from Deep Cuts on back-to-back episodes, as "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" appeared on April 23, while "Set the Hook" was featured on April 30.





Alif Tree album features "Way Down South"

Tony Joe White's "Way Down South" is featured on Alif Tree's new release Clockwork. For more on the album, head over to Alif Tree's MySpace page, or download the track from iTunes.





Album Review: 4 out of 5 stars
by ANDY GILL

Swamp-rock auteur Tony Joe White is best known for "Polk Salad Annie", so it's surprising it's not on this set of revisitations.

But the rest of his Louisiana characters reappear, from the vengeful "High Sheriff (of Calhoun Parish)" to hapless "Roosevelt & Ira Lee" and downhome chums "Willie and Laura Mae Jones", in new arrangements framing White's baritone and distorted fuzz-wah guitar lines in beats and loops furnished by his son Jody.

The result is a series of evocative grooves, like the dark "As the Crow Flies" and the strangely sinister instrumental "Homemade Ice Cream". "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" becomes a sort of trip-hop swamp-funk, while his ambivalent celebration of hippie culture, "Soul Francisco", is a haunted miasma of organ, strings and fuzz guitar.

Pick of the album: 'Soul Francisco', 'Willie and Laura Mae Jones', 'Swamp Water'





Album Review
by JONNY WHITESIDE

The venerable swamp-rock auteur Tony Joe White — whose songs have been covered by Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr. — roars back into town not only with an impeccable four-decade musical pedigree but also a positively brain-pulping new album. A master of dirty-toned electric-guitar eloquence and off-kilter, ultra-maxi groove mongering, White has consistently explored forbidding musical territory, areas fraught with menace and passion, and he has an abiding insight when it comes to matters of human folly. On the just-released Deep Cuts, the singer-guitarist’s perspective is as resolutely insightful and deeply funk-informed as ever; produced with tastefully apocalyptic doses of severe techno-distortion by his son Jody, it’s a kaleidoscopic mixture of instrumental thrillers and some startling remakes (“Soul Francisco” becomes an ominous, symphonic fuzz and wah-wah workout thrilling in its audacity and execution), all perfectly framing White’s richly muddy, near-subsonic vocals and lowdown, incendiary guitar style. White remains a fabulously individualistic artist, and one who rocks with a vengeful intensity that’s nothing short of wondrous... ....