Tony Joe White: The 13th Floor Interview 2017

Swamp music king Tony Joe White returns to Auckland for two shows at The Tuning Fork on April 9th and 10th. The Polk Salad Annie hitmaker is no stranger to New Zealand having played here on numerous occasions and always leaving an indelible memory on those who have seen him.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Tony Joe White recently about his impending trip down under and discussed his latest album, Rain Crow.

Click here to listen to the interview with Tony Joe White:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: The last time you were here in New Zealand was 2013; is that right?

TJW: I think it was, man. It was playing at… the Powerstation, and we had some Hell’s Angels in there, and a bunch of boys guarding the door; that was wild.

MD: Is it a different kind of crowd that comes to see you, when you play down here, than when you’re playing around the States?

TJW: It’s usually a crowd that really wants to rock a little bit; get a little wild if they want to. My home town, Louisiana, or Australia or Sydney, or wherever, people know that when me and my drummer crank it up, we don’t care how it’s going to go; we just let it roll.

MD: I was hoping that I could catch up with you, and see what you’ve been up to in the last three or four years since you were last here. I know you’ve put out an album since then: one called Rain Crow, that came out last May; is that right?

TJW: Yeah.

MD: What can you tell me about that, in general terms? Is it pretty much what you’ve been doing all along? Anything major happening there that’s different?

TJW: I think Rain Crow went deeper into the swamps. My son, Jodie, got involved with…he’s been in the production end for a long time. He got into taking it on down into the mud and where the ‘gators live. It has an old timey, swampy feel to it – like stories, and things like that – and then, all of a sudden, a fuzz guitar will jump out on you. For me, we went into the deep swamp.

MD: And how much of what your son knows about the swamp sound is first hand? Did he grow up in that area, or did he grow up elsewhere and just gets it from you?

TJW: He gets it, pretty much, from me and from the music, because he’s listened to it since he was four years old, and he’s always lived with me, either in Memphis or Arkansas or here in Tennessee… he loves all this stuff; all the crawfish stuff, the ‘gator stories… he loves it.

MD: One of the songs that was on Rain Crow is a song called Middle of Nowhere, that you co-wrote with Billy Bob Thornton. I was wondering how that came about?

TJW: Billy Bob did an album that absolutely knocked me out, and a movie that knocked me out. I knew that he’d been brought up the same way I had. After I saw Sling Blade, I thought, “Golly, man,” and come to find out he was only born and raised about sixty five miles across… the Louisiana land to Arkansas, on a cotton farm, it was just like me, man; so, we hooked up. He called me up one afternoon from LA and wanted to know if he could come out and hang out at the studio – look at some old guitars, lists of songs, and stuff – but anyway, he brought his whole band – bass player, drummer, singers; everybody, really – and we’d all sit and listen to music all afternoon. Then that night, they were doing the gig here at the Ryman Auditorium, and right before he left the studio, he stuck a little note in my shirt pocket, and it was those first four lines. He said, “I don’t know what you can do with these, but these are here;” and so, it turned into what it turned into.

MD: How would you describe the song to folks? What’s the final outcome?

TJW: … It’s an actual reality about a person I knew down in the swamps, growing up. I was probably twelve years old, and I think he was around twenty, and Joe was a Down’s syndrome. But he loved all of us teenage boys, and he’d follow us to the river and watch us diving off trees, and stuff. And every Sunday, Joe would baptise all of us; real soulful. It’s almost too pretty to talk about.

MD: I know that you also co-write with your wife, Leanne, right? There’s a song, Hoochy Woman, that you wrote with her.

TJW: Yes, we wrote some beautiful tunes together….Sittin’ Across At Midnight for Joe Cocker and Tina Turner…Undercover Agent For The Blues, stuff like that. She don’t write much a year – I don’t either, really, when I think about it – but when she writes one, it usually hits somebody really right.

MD: I think, about two years ago, you also put out a book, right: Rattlesnakes And Cookies?

 TJW: Oh yeah, that was her. That was her thing, man: the old timey recipes, and stuff like that, from Texas and Louisiana – how to cook this, how to cook that – and then, put a little story in the middle of it; pictures, always the pictures.

MD: What was the response to that book? Did people seem to understand what it was all about?

TJW: I think it sells as many like at shows as the CDs, because that’s the only way they can get a hold of it: the early life. That was back in Corpus Christie, in Kingsville back in ’68, ’69, ’65; somewhere in there.

MD: Do you get in there in the kitchen and contribute as well?

TJW: Yeah, I contributed a few pictures to it, and I did a few stories in it; and we did some real things in it that go on in our lives: like at the cattle ranch with five boys trying to tackle this big, old, white charolais bull – to give him a shot, or whatever – and she got that on film. She always had a camera.

MD: There’s one other song that I wanted to touch on: a song called Conjure Child, that’s on the latest album. I’m wondering what you can tell me about that one; how it came to be.

TJW: … If you could reach back to two or three albums earlier, there was a song called Conjure Woman. This is her baby, but she had moved away from it, left it with its grandparents, and she just couldn’t handle it, or something. Well, Conjure Woman: she’s in too much stuff in the woods and wildness… she can’t take care of a baby. The baby looked like it wasn’t going to make the night, but it made one night, and then started going blind. They ended up taking it out back in a boat – the mum and dad – to the grandma’s place, and they left her there to live or die.

MD: Where does this all come from? Is it people you know, things that you read about, just making it up in your imagination?

TJW: I think it comes from the moon I know that most of it comes from up above, from God. I’ll be sitting out by the fire, and the big old full moon will come up, and I’ve got a little fire going and a guitar, and a little cold beer… and all of a sudden the cow just kicks in and hollers and it puts a primitive thing on your life.

MD: You’re playing at the Byron Bay Blues Festival as well; is that right?

TJW: Oh yeah.

MD: Is that something you return to every once in a while?

TJW: Yeah, I’ve done it about… fourteen times. It’s such a cool festival, because the people…. They come out there and camp out in tents for three weeks before it even starts, and the water is slack, and showers aren’t heard of. You can drive around town and get a little food. But it’s amazing how much they put into music.

MD: You’re only going to be in New Zealand for the one date this time, right?

TJW: Yeah.

MD: I think last time you were here, you played five dates.

TJW: I don’t know. There was talk about a them throwing in a side one night. I hadn’t heard about it…

MD: Oh, okay. We’ll see what happens. I assume you’re going to be doing some tunes from Rain Crow. Have you worked on any new stuff since then?

TJW: I’ve got a couple of new ones that I wrote, but I’m going to be pretty content with jumping into old Rain Crow… so, it’ll all work out.

Click here for tickets and info to see Tony Joe White at The Tuning Fork in April.