Interview with Tony Joe White by Robert Ruggeri


Tony Joe White has always been one of my favourite artists since his first album came out back at the end of the 60s. I had the pleasure to meet and interview him few years ago in Austin where he was performing at the South By South West Festival. What you read in here, is that interview.

RR: when and how did you start playing music?
TJW: well, I was raised in Louisiana and got five sisters and a bro' and mama and dad they all play piano, guitar and...I never really cared about and I was about 15 when my bro' brought back home a Lightnin' Hopkins album and I said "oh man..!" and I got into it.
RR: in those years did you listen to the radio, which really was in the houses, or you used to buy albums?
TJW: I was listening to the radios good beat, you know there was Elvis.... but I mostly stuck with Elvis, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins.
RR: how did you start playing guitar?
TJW: you know, my dad had a guitar and he was a great, real good player, my bro' brought that album home and I heard that kind of music and oh man! there was that acustic guitar and I locked myself in the bedroom at night and start palying it.
RR: so Hopkins was your first inspiration
TJW: oh yes definitely
RR: let me ask you, Dire Straits took a lot from J.J. Cale and J.J. Cale took a little from you even though nobody says that, maybe it's just an idea but when I hear JJ playing there is some kinda laid-back music that you used to play years before him
TJW: yes, there's a lot of talking about us 3 really and us three hangin on friends has always brought Knopfler, J.J. and me sometime Clapton started to play like that. I think that we all listened to the same kind of music we grew up together. You know, all the old blues players like Leadbelly and we all gave our own interpretation of it and everybody has is own style and nobody plays like Knopfler, nobody can play like J.J. and nobody can play, I guess, like I do but we all do these little things here and there that sometimes, whenI hear 'em even on my albums, reminds me of Knopfler or J.J..
RR: You were quite popular in europe and in Italy back in the 60s beginning of 70s but then for few years no Tony Joe's music was on the charts or in the records stores and we had to wait until Tina Turner's album "The Best", how come?
TJW: I think in Europe there is a kind....they treat the music more like a form of art than the flavour of the week. Over there if they like what you're doin' if they think you mean what you're doin', the just like it. I remember my first time there when I had a hit in France and it was before Polk Salad Annie and there wasn't much english over there at all, they just liked what I was playing on stage and they fell new what I was saying in somehow.
RR: Do you think that at that time the art for the covers was more important than today, 'cause for me at that time the vinyl and the artwork was stronger than now, the impact that an album had was a lot different than what we have now with the cds.
TJW: It was really important because what's rolling was big you know! ( he refers to the size of the format) so it had to be a lot of attention and there was a lot of talking when you was getting ready to do' an album. You know it's cool when I came out my wife done lot of my pictures I was lucky to have her as a photographer but all this progress that have been made by the computer... you know I like it just like the cover for my album Sneaky, my wife took picture of me and than she was able to take my guitar out of it and work all together until she came out with the right cover and oh, man, I do like it!
RR: who are your two favorite artists if you have to pick two?
TJW: Tina Turner and... I probably still have to go back to John Lee Hooker
RR: how come Tina Turner got to you?
TJW: she heard a demo that I have done at my house of Under Cover Agent for the Blues my wife and I had written and they called me, her manager Roger called me, they wanted me to come to LA and meet Tina there and than fly to New York to cut the song just a one song like a dream come true you know, not only to go and hear to do but I was playing guitar too because they wanted that sound just like in the demo so we did all: bass, drums, B-3 organ and me and then Tina sing it.At the end she turned to me and said "I heard an old song in that demo I like a lot", so what is it' "Steamy Windows" and here we go into that and then we cut four songs off that demo. So it all started from that one song.
RR: if you have to record an album with all your favorite songs, other people songs, what would you include in it?
TJW: too hard to say that man, I got too many but I would definitively pick a couple of Elvis and I pick Boom Boom of John Lee but it's too hard to pick! oh yeah, that Al Green number Let's Stay Together" I would love to sing it, with my low voice would be harder but .....
RR: thanks Mr. Tony Joe
TJ: Thank to you Robert,

And the new album with so great guests is just out and his famous Swamp Sound is back again! Dig it.