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Tony Joe White
 Tony Joe White is regarded as the finest exponent of swamp rock and, since breaking into the US charts in 1969 with Polk Salad Annie, has maintained a unique position as a singer-songwriter.
Before he tours Australia on the back of a fine new album titled 'Uncovered' - which features duets with the likes of the late Waylon Jennings, JJ Cale, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler - I caught up with White who was experiencing a cold spell at his studio/home in Franklin, Tennessee whereby a campfire he enthusiastically looked forward to visiting Australia again - his first trip here in just over two years.
Although he was originally signed to Monument Records in 1967, his career took off in all places, like Paris where Soul Francisco became a hit in the clubs. White's roots to southern music have remained strong throughout his long career; he explains that he was 15 or 16 down in Louisiana and the swamp country when he started getting into the guitar. "I was listening to a lot of Lighting Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters - that kind of thing. So it was what I heard that moved me. My main man was Lighting Hopkins."
He explains that coming from Louisiana "Realness is most important to me - the realness of what I do, like my words, my voice and my guitar - and they stayed with me over the years, you know? The song that hit in France [Soul Francisco] was pretty hippie-type music, you know, and they just kind of got into it and they didn't know the words or much of the meaning or anything, but you know what? They liked the feel of it."
White, often referred to as the 'Swamp Fox', has had much success as a songwriter with his material being covered by the likes of Elvis Presley (Polk Salad Annie, I Got A Thing About You Baby), Dusty Springfield (Willie And Laura Mae Jones) and Brooke Benton and Randy Crawford (Rainy Night In Georgia). He explains that most of these artists picked the songs up from his first album 'Black And White'. "Soul Francisco was on that too. Willie And Laura Mae and those kinds of things started popping up. That was the first time I heard anybody record some of my songs. You know, Brooke Benton - Rainy Night In Georgia...Music reaches a long way, man!
"You know, something real happened back in that time about music and young people are getting into it right now - trying to reach back and get that old sound. They have tried everything else and now they are reaching back to that."
White explains that he still records things the same way but with his son helping out these days. "I have my own studio here in my ol' house - reel to reel, analogue and the reason we did 'Uncovered' is that my son Jody was going 'Man, we gotta get some of your favourite people to play on this' and it's guys I've been friends with for 17 or 18 years. A lot of the tapes were cut as demos late at night and that's how the album came together.
"Much of it was done over time because once we looked at it a lot of these songs were over eight years old when they were done here with my drummer and bass, organ. So when the project came up Jody was digging up old recordings - even Waylon's tune he'd done about eight years ago in a bedroom in my house. It was like finding Indiana Jones' temple," White laughs.
Live gigs are still hugely enjoyable for the singer-songwriter and his drummer Jeff Hale. "We take cues from the audience. They holler out what they wanna hear. I don't have no set list; I don't worry about any of that. We'll go way back to Polk Salad Annie and Willie And Laura Mae and then do some of the ones off the album. So it's like you never know what you're gonna do on the night and that's what keeps it firing man! I just walk out and say 'Hey! Let's go!'"
White muses about our hometown, saying that he's had some good times in Adelaide. "All of Australia reminds me of my early days in Louisiana. The crowds there, they just want me to play something that I feel from the heart and that's what I do."
Tony Joe White plays at Fowler's Live on Tue 3 April
'Undercover' is out now through Warner
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