TONY JOE WHITE

Swamp-rock legend (1943–2018)

As an illustration of his geographical and spiritual roots, “Polk Salad Annie” served as an ideal primer for the music of Tony Joe White. Released in the summer of 1969, the song places itself firmly in the northeast swamplands of louisiana where White was raised on a cotton farm, just west of the Mississippi River. it tells the tale of a poor Southern girl, so mean she “made the alligators look tame”, who picks the local pokeweed to cook for her family. Set to a humid groove and White’s laconic baritone, “Polk Salad Annie” helped popularise what became known as swamp rock when it made the Billboard Top 10.

A devotee of lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Reed, White had been inspired to write after hearing Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe” on the radio. “i thought, ‘Man, how real, because i am Billie Joe, i know that life,’” he explained to interviewer Ray Shasho in 2014. “i’ve been in the cotton fields. So i thought if i ever tried to write, i’m going to write about something i know about… it was kind of a guide for me from then on.”

White’s other significant hit, by way of R&B singer Brook Benton, was 1970’s “Rainy night in Georgia”, which reached no 4 in the US and was later covered by Ray Charles, Otis Rush, Randy Crawford, Rod Stewart and more. “Polk Salad Annie”, meanwhile, was picked up by elvis Presley. White’s rural hybrid of blues, country, soul and Cajun music (which led to him being christened Swamp Fox) sustained him through nearly two dozen albums, starting with 1969’s Black And White. By the time Tina Turner recorded “Steamy Windows” – one of four White compositions on 1989’s Foreign Affair, on which he also played guitar and harmonica – he’d largely quit his solo career to write for others. However, that album’s success led to a new deal with Polydor for 1991’s Closer To The Truth, kickstarting a creative phase that continued through to Bad Mouthin’, released in September this year.