Snakey
Snakey by Tony Joe White, published by Swamp Records
They may not be songs about Texas, but Tony Joe White wrote Rainy Night in Georgia and Polk Salad Annie while living in Corpus Christi. Currently on tour opening for Joe Cocker, the Louisiana native chats about old times, his new record label, and the Texas musician who first inspired him to play guitar.
HE PLAYS THE VERIZON WIRELESS Theatre in Houston on November 30, and the Majestic Theatre in Dallas on December 1.
texasmonthly.com: You just got back from Europe. Where did you go?
Tony Joe White: We started in Holland, Scotland, England, Germany, up to Austria...everywhere over there.
texasmonthly.com: All with Joe Cocker?
TJW: No, this was just me and my drummer. I always like to play on stage just with a drummer. For some reason my guitar playing is wilder and I'm able to sing in tune. There's a lot of freedom that way.
texasmonthly.com: Is that how you play when you're opening for Joe Cocker?
TJW: Yeah, same way.
texasmonthly.com: Has this drummer been with you for a long time?
TJW: Yeah, Boom-Boom, is what I call him. You know, he's got this big 'ol foot. He just lays it in there and it fits my guitar just right. He's been with me about 11 or 12 years. But on the Cocker tour, actually Jack, Joe's drummer is playing with me. I actually don't have but about thirty minutes when we're fronting. So Boom's gonna get a rest. He's been at it hard over in Europe with me.
texasmonthly.com: How long do you play when you're headlining?
TJW: Usually about an hour and a half, and then it ends up about two and a half. You know, they won't let you go. And you get caught up there and before you know it....
texasmonthly.com: Are the audiences in Europe different than they are here?
TJW: Not as far as the way they join me instantly. Some of the places are a lot bigger, but the crowds, no matter where, just become a part of the show. I come out first by myself and just get with the crowd. And they're hollering out all the old swamp tunes and I do requests. I do about thirty minutes that way and then we come out and kick it up another volume level and go.
texasmonthly.com: When you finish up with the Cocker tour are you going to do some more solo touring?
TJW: I will. I go to Australia for a blues festival in February that we play every year. When I come back to America a lot of things have been lined up.
texasmonthly.com: You have a new label and a new record, Snakey. A lot of things going on?
TJW: The label is called Swamp Records. We had it in the makes for a good while, just my son, Jody, and me, and then all of a sudden we got the Web site going and all this stuff began happening, and the tour and I said, "Man, I'm going to have to go fishing sometime."
texasmonthly.com: I can relate. We have a quiet little place in the country in Southwest Louisiana where we go fishing or just hang around the fire and play guitar.
TJW: That'd be great! There's nothing better than a good fire, a good cold beer, and just sitting out and being still. In fact, that's how I write, really. When I get an idea or something on the guitar, a title or a line, I usually go back out in the woods behind the house and build a fire, get a couple of six packs of beer and my acoustic guitar, and just sit and stare into the fire and all of a sudden something will come.
texasmonthly.com: When Polk Salad became a hit, weren't you living somewhere in South Texas?
TJW: Corpus Christi. I lived there for twelve years. When I left Louisiana I went straight to Kingsville then Corpus. I was really into it. I mean barefoot all the time and brown and fishing out on Padre Island. And playing in the clubs at night. I thought, "Man, this is already it." I actually started writing down there. I was just about 19 when I first went there, right after high school. And I started playing in the clubs there six nights a week and, you know, that's where I first wrote Polk Salad Annie and Rainy Night in Georgia, there in Corpus.
texasmonthly.com: Where did you record?
TJW: We saved up a little bit and took a week off, and I headed to Memphis, but for some reason—it seemed too big or something for me—I went on to Nashville. I got hooked up with a guy at a club the first night, a bouncer, who knew a guy who knew a guy that had a telephone number. About five guys down, you know? Most everybody I met that afternoon, when they asked what kind of music I played, I said, "It's kind of bluesy and kind of swampy." And they said, "You drove a long way for nothing." So anyway the next day I had this phone number. It was a guy named Bob Beckham, and he was a publisher and also a partner with Monument Records. And he also had a bad tequila hangover and did not want to see anybody. His secretary, after talking to me for awhile got on the phone to him and said, "I think you should see this guy. He drove all the way from Corpus Christi." And Beckham said, "I don't care how far he drove." And she said, "I think you should see him." I don't know what it was, there's a look you get when you really want somebody to hear you play, you know? So he came out and we went in this little room together and I sung him a piece of Polk and I sang Roosevelt and Ira Lee and a few others. And he started coming out of his hangover. It went almost straight from there to the company. We got a deal and came back two weeks later and I started recording. Which, in this day and time, would not happen. In fact, it wouldn't have happened then except that he was the only man in town that would have listened to any kind of blues at all.
texasmonthly.com: You sing a lot about racial relations in the South, like in the song Laura and Willie Mae. What is your sense of how things were? Some say that they were actually better in the South than....
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