Tony Joe White

Tony Joe White

Tony Joe White at the Texas pop Festival- Photo by Paul Johnston

In 1969, Tony Joe White came howling out of the swamplands of Louisiana into the national spotlight with his classic, “Polk Salad Annie”-a Top 10 Hit, followed by Brook Benton’s soulful rendition of Tony’s timeless classic, “Rainy Night In Georgia” in 1970. Throughout the ‘70s, Tony Joe toured with some of the biggest artists of the decade including Credence Clearwater Revival and James Taylor.

Thirty years later people are still “Searching For Tony Joe”…as witnessed by the award-winning documentary of the same name-winner of the Detroit Film Festival and recently featured in sellout performances at SXSW and The L.A. Film Festival. And thirty years later he’s still doing just what he’s always done: creating soul-flavored, blues-drenched, truth-injected songs about swamp characters and reflective soul-tinged ballads about life and love.

The 90s began with an explosion of activity as superstar Tina Turner recorded four of Tony Joe’s songs, including the world-wide hit, Steamy Windows, on her multi-platinum selling Foreign Affairs album for which Tony produced the title track. With the advent of that project, Tony Joe formed an alliance with manager, Roger Davies and his career began to soar. While there was a certain “mystique” surrounding Tony Joe White in the United States, it was in Europe where he gained legendary status.

French audiences eagerly embraced him as the ‘Swamp Fox’ and in 1991 he signed with Remark and debuted Closer To The Truth. He toured Europe in ’91 and ’92 with Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker among others. He cut two more albums for Remark, The Path Of A Decent Groove and Lake Placid Blues, the latter garnering the first of two nominations for “Best R & B Album” from the Nashville Music Awards, (the second being, The Best Of Tony Joe White, a 1996 retrospective of his work on Warner Bros.). In addition, in1998 he was the subject of a French produced documentary: Tony Joe White-The Man From Down South.

Tony Joe has had songs recorded by dozens of major artists from Elvis to Ray Charles. From Hank, Jr. to Tim McGraw. From John Mayhall to Waylon Jennings, (who has recorded numerous Tony Joe White songs-including the ’99 release, Closing In On The Fire). His On Silent Wings, for Tina featured Sting on her best-selling, Wildest Dreams. He has written and performed jingles for McDonalds and Levi’s 501 Blues; been featured on movie soundtracks Millennium and Selena, Hotspot (starring Don Johnson), and recently had songs performed by Etta James on two HBO feature films; and worked with Marc Bryan (Hootie & The Blowfish) and Michael McDonald (with whom he co-wrote a song recorded by Joe Cocker).

To see Tony Joe's page in the Texas International Pop Festival program, click here.

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