Tony
Joe White
Dan Brodie
@ The Basement, Sydney
Wednesday April 11, 2001
I'm not sure if Tony Joe White really was the first ever "swamp rocker"
as some have claimed on his behalf, but either way I think I'm pretty safe
in agreeing with the assertion that he was the first one who actually came
from the milieu of which he sang, right down to really being raised on a cotton
farm.
"The characters in the songs are real. I knew most of 'em. 'Polk Salad
Annie' - there were a couple of girls I knew that fit her to a 'T'. I just
changed their names. Old Man Roosevelt, Ira Lee, Willie, all those guys were
real."
For someone so characteristically, indeed uniquely, American, it comes as a surprise to learn that his first hit ("Soul Francisco") occurred in France and that aside from there, his greatest impact has been in Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand and here, while his last two albums weren't even released in the US. With his inimitable blend of authentic delta blues, Muscle Shoals soul and unadorned country (which in the record business is now reduced to a marketing sub-category of "traditional/alternative country", while the label of mainstream "country" is reserved for the sanitized and homogenized droppings of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and their ilk), apparently he crosses too many musical boundaries for the record company marketers to cope with, making himself impossible to classify and hence too hard to promote easily, a problem which he shares with other equally unique artists like Louis Tillett, Peter Hammill and Richard Thompson.
I must admit that I hadn't thought of TJW in over a decade, until he turned up as one of the support acts for Joe Cocker a couple of years ago. A strange pairing on the face of it, but apparently they share the same manager. His short support set that night canvassed most of his old, well known numbers and shone a light on a few more recent, unknown ones as well, showing that he hadn't stopped writing or lost his touch over the intervening years, even if few record companies want to put out his records anymore. It also demonstrated that although he may have used many session men to fill out the backing sound on his albums, he has never had need of a hired gun to ghost any of the lead guitar work for him.
In fact, I was so impressed with that performance that I was prepared to fork out the $80+ for the Basement's dinner and show deal to catch him again this time as he passed through town on his way to this year's West Coast Blues & Roots Festival. A mate who had also caught the Cocker show and was equally impressed joined me. Since the Basement has few tables for two (by definition, a table for two is just a table at which they couldn't squeeze in a third chair, no matter how hard they tried and believe me they know how to jam 'em in pretty good) we ended up at a table for four, sharing with a couple of keen fans who turned out to be brother and sister. She in particular was a real rock'n'roll fiend, had most recently caught the Hellacopters on Monday night and was catching Midnight Oil on the following evening. I'd thought about the Hellacopters on Monday, but skipped them in the end, and had already caught Midnight Oil on the previous evening, so we were almost on the same page. If I'd had my wits about me I would have signed her up to write a few reviews for the bar, but unfortunately I was too busy staring down her cleavage to seize the opportunity.
Dinner was edible but uneventful, save for a bit of drama with a bad bottle of wine. Wine waiters go through the ritual of allowing you to taste the wine before they pour it out for everyone, but are dumbstruck on the rare occasions when it's knocked back. Admittedly, some patrons labour under the misapprehension that they are being allowed to decide whether they like the wine, when in fact they are only being invited to test whether the there's anything wrong with that particular bottle. It's a rare occurrence when that turns out to be the case, but tonight was one such occasion; the wine smelt and tasted like someone had poured a bottle of nail polish remover into it. Its rejection was followed by a shocked silence, then a visit from the maitre d', who soon saw us right. Okay, got food, got wine, bring on the music.
First up was the obligatory Australian support act, local C&W troubadour Dan Brodie whose first song was interesting and idiosyncratic, but whose repertoire thereafter sounded completely Americanized (a trait common amongst far too many Australian C&W singers in my experience).
Finally it was time for the man himself, relaxed and almost regal as he picked his way around the equipment on the small stage and folded his long, lanky frame into a chair in front of the microphone. While his face now has a few more lines than you see on the cover photos of his early records (and recent greatest hits packages), you wouldn't credit that more than thirty years separates this tour from those initial publicity shots. Wearing dark glasses and leaning over a Fender that looked old but as well cared for as its owner, he soon had us down south and way back up in the woods. My seat was perfect: almost dead in front of his chair and less than two metres from the stage. When the two couples at the table in front of me sat back in their chairs, I had the most perfect camera shot imaginable up the middle of their table. It was at this moment that I discovered that I'd forgotten to put my camera in my bag as I rushed off to work this morning. Boy, I'll bet that never happens to Tony Mott!
The first few songs were played solo and then he was joined by percussionist Marc "Boom Boom" Cohen for the rest of the set, but it's as much the story telling in the lyrics as the music which defines TJW. While I'm still waiting to find out whether that guy ultimately escaped from the High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish or not, it's impossible not to be entranced by his vignettes of southern backwoods life in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, combined with gentle folk and fairy tale fantasies (which he labeled in typical, economical style as "gumbo mystique" in one interview) like "Even Trolls Love Rock And Roll" (a good excuse for a bit of flash work on guitar and wah wah pedal) and "They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora, Arkansas" with its post-Watergate theme of big money and official corruption.
Aside from one point where he threw the show open to requests, there wasn't a lot of interaction with audience - a call early on for "Polk Salad Annie" brought the laconic response, "Oh yeah, Polk will happen" (which indeed it did later in the night), while persistent calls throughout the show for "Copper Kettle" went unacknowledged and unrewarded. The backdrop for the stage was a banner proclaiming the URL of his website and he was careful to mention that his new album was available direct from there - on the face of it, an incongruous commercial avenue for someone whose favourite place is reputed to be a backwoods cabin with no running water, let alone electricity; judging by the expression on his face, the irony wasn't lost on him either.
However he is a perfect candidate for internet distribution - a cult figure with a distinctive sound and an established fan base due to his earlier commercial releases, who therefore already has an existing market "demographic" which seeks him out rather than requiring him to divert energy and expense into promoting himself. While the likes of more mainstream artists such as Prince can come a cropper when they attempt to shift records through their own sites in significant commercial quantities, isolated "cult" artist sites are always likely to be a viable cottage industry out on the new electronic frontier's less colonised periphery, because they are inherently far more economical and efficient than the major companies on that small scale. However it doesn't hurt to have the man himself out and about in person once in a while either.- John McPharlin
Rating: A little something special from Grandpa's moonshine still, then 4 beers as a chaser.
