TONY JOE WHITE Hoodoo (Yep Roc Records)
Crank it really, really loud When I first heard the hugely
underrated swamp rock king a few years back – long after he had a couple of hits in the late 60s (“Polk Salad Annie” primarily; he also wrote “Rainy Night In Georgia”) – I figured him for a black man. Plain and simple. The tone and timbre of his vocal whisperings and the sinuous blues from his Fender made me think: “Here’s another relatively unknown blues virtuoso.” Wrong assumption on his skin
colour, but right on everything else. Tony Joe White is in his seventh
decade now and – while every album is a treat for those who know of his trademark uncluttered Cajun backwater blues full of sinewy riffs, reverb and austere lyrics – he only gets better. Hoodoo is a superb album by a
man who has been in the shadows for decades but has created his own unique style and stuck by it. This is heady stuff: every track knocks you out in its quality, or at least it does me.
The American magazine Mother
Jones named Hoodoo one of their top 10 albums from 2013, any genre, and it is easy to see why. Using just his guitar, a bit of harmonica, and drums, bass and keys, White and his band make magic in their Nashville studio – an old antebellum mansion that he says is “full of wood, good for the sound.” Most of the nine tracks were done pretty much in one take. The band cooks wonderfully as White cranks out spartan, just-right, tasteful licks that make you want to tap your toes, bob your head and crank it really, really loud. The groove and interplay is incredible on every song. From the driving opener “The
Gift” – telling the tale of a graveyard gathering of blues greats – the album powers on, all delicious licks and understated vocals forged in
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MUSIC REVIEW BILL MACPHERSON
White’s indomitable style. “Holed Up” captures his persona and music perfectly; languid, lingering riffs with minimal lyrics and a killer backbeat to anchor it all. Like many of the tracks on his
periodic albums over the decades, most of the songs on Hoodoo are autobiographical. From the eerie dread of “Alligator, Mississippi” through the heartbreak and resilience of “The Flood” to the hurricane warnings inherent in “Storm Coming”, you know this is music from the heart and the gut. Listen to “9 Foot Sack” and tell me you can’t see the Louisiana-born White and his siblings working the cotton fields, poor but prideful still. The loping beat, rhythm, sinuous licks
and simple lyrics paint an evocative portrait. Toss in some ominous-sounding
but perfectly-placed reverb/organ with omnipresent sinewy guitar stylings, and you’re awed at the stripped-down wizardry of the sound White has perfected in telling of his childhood. Most impressively, the next track
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BOUNDER MAGAZINE 13
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