Music Reviews: Tony Joe White

Tony Joe White
"Smoke From the Chimney" (Easy Eye Sound)
Tony Joe White "Smoke From the Chimney" (Easy Eye Sound)

Tony Joe White

"Smoke From the Chimney" (Easy Eye Sound)

"Polk Salad Annie" by Elvis, "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Brook Benton, "Steamy Windows" by Tina Turner - Tony Joe White is probably best-known through others' versions of his songs. But the Louisiana-born "Swamp Fox," who died at 75 in 2018, was a mesmerizing performer in his own right.

"Smoke From the Chimney" contains nine White guitar-and-voice demos fleshed out by producer Dan Auerbach with his usual stable of Nashville studio aces. The Black Keys frontman does a terrific job of capturing the deep-voiced singer's brooding swamp-rock essence, giving this American original a worthy send-off.

Of course, it helps that White is in top form as a writer. The title song is a poetic evocation of grappling with old age and mortality, "Listen to Your Song" imparts a hard-earned lesson, and "Scary Stories" conjures a goosebump-inducing sense of menace.

He brings dignity to the unabashed tearjerker "Over You," and even the slighter stuff, like "Boot Money" and "Bubba Jones," gets by on White's charm and wit.

The closer, "Billy," like much of the album, takes on an added poignancy in light of White's death: "We've been bucked off and kicked so many times/ And the ground just keeps getting harder/ Billy, you know as well as I/ We ain't gettin' no younger/ Ain't no easy way of saying goodbye/ So be sure to tell 'em all down in Texas I said hi."

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