GIG REVIEW – TONY JOE WHITE

Legendary America singer/songwriter/guitarist Tony Joe White is currently on a European tour to promote his latest album offering “Hoodoo”, our London Guitar Academy reviewer Paul Wood caught up with his show at the Robin 2 in Bilston.

TONY JOE WHITE

                               TONY JOE WHITE

Here’s the official video of Tony Joe White talking about the “Hoodoo” album:

There was a good crowd for the show in Bilston and when Tony Joe White walked out on stage with his customary shades, guitar and sun hat and drawled in his trademark sub-bass  voice “how y’all doing”, he was met with an enthusiastic round of applause.

Performing the first song solo, he then brought out his “band” – drummer Bryan Owings. The two of them proceeded to play a set of swamp rock boogie blues, with drummer Owings laying down a swamp beat shuffle and Tony Joe White (now 70 but still in fine form) accompanying his own low down vocals with a scratchy rhythm backing before hitting the effects pedals to give the guitar solos a real crunch and drive. He’s a big fan of the Boomerang Wah pedal and the ColorSound Tonebender Fuzz pedal and he knows how to use them!

The songs were (unsurprisingly) centred around latest album “Hoodoo” and other more recent material but he still found space to play a couple of his signature classics – “Polk Salad Annie” (which closed the main set) and “Steamy Windows” (played as part of the encore set).

Here’s a 2014 live clip of “Steamy Windows”:

“Hoodoo” tracks played included “Who You Gonna Hoodoo Now?”, “Alligator Mississippi”,  “Sweet Tooth” and “The Gift”.

Here’s a 2014 live clip of “The Gift”:

Here’s a link to the official video for “Who You Gonna Hoodoo Now?”

For LGA students check out the scratchy rhythm playing on his trademark Fender Stratocaster:

You don’t get a lot of between-song conversation with Tony Joe White – and he remains seated throughout the set – but he lets his guitar and songs do the talking for him – the self styled “Swamp Fox” has still got it – go catch him live if you can.

Blast From The Past

Here’s a clip of Tony Joe White (with a Telecaster) playing “Polk Salad Annie” from Swedish TV in 1969: