Revered as one of the originators of swamp rock, Tony Joe White has recast a number of his classic songs on Deep Cuts, proving that time has no jurisdiction over funky. His signature groove, starting from his 1969 hit “Polk Salad Annie,” is what he uses to paint a vivid picture of the world he experienced growing up, where poverty provided unity between otherwise divided races and bad-news women were sometimes too good to pass up.
Tony Joe cut the tracks with his son Jody providing a rich palette of beats and loops, utilizing both digital and live drums, strings, organs, and the unmistakable timbre
of his guitar. White’s time-worn baritone is positively haunting, like a restless spirit conjured by the funk that was always the core of his music.
As a collective work, Deep Cuts portrays the complications of living on the cusp of impending danger — be it an encounter with a brutal country sheriff or a poisonous snake — through the eyes of a master songwriter who has seen and lived all of it. Deep Cuts not only updates a cache of classic songs for a contemporary audience, it reframes them, revisiting his timeless imagery in a new, modern context. With Deep Cuts, Tony Joe reveals that there is still plenty to be gleaned from his irresistible, timeless groove.
DEEP CUTS hit the stores June 10, 2008, with the following track listing:
1. Set The Hook
2. As The Crow Flies
3. Willie And Laura Mae Jones
4. Soul Francisco
5. Run With The Bulls
6. High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish
7. Aspen, Colorado
8. Homemade Ice Cream
9. Swamp Water
10. Roosevelt and Ira Lee
NEWS
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.
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.
Number 7 album of 2008
Tony Joe White's newest album Deep Cuts was chosen as the 7 album of 2008 by American Songwriter's senior editor Paul Zollo. To check out the rest of American Songwriter's picks for the year, click here.
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'
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.
Tony Joe White dear: Your rock music is great so keep on rocking this guitar of yours, singing and pepping up the lovers of rock everywhere. Accept an embrace from your Brazilian fan,
We are huge TJW fans! Hope you dig our House Rockin' Chicago Blues too. We do a mean live version of Polk Salad Annie at our shows...Our own little tribute to TJW :)
Online Now!
