Set The Hook From Tony Joe White’s new “Deep Cuts” album From The Commercial Appeal – Memphis: Tony Joe remains true to Tony Joe: White’s newest album mixes classic soulful tunes with ‘techno swamp’ “I went into my studio with a Stratocaster, mic and my foot, and cut it all live, letting ’em out like a Delta blues singer” _____________________________________ When Goodwill, Louisiana-born singer-songwriter Tony Joe White started his career in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the mid-1960s, he performed covers – mostly blues tunes, interspersed with a few Elvis Presley songs. By the start of the next decade, Elvis was covering Tony Joe – specifically “Polk Salad Annie,” White’s folksy, fiery number about Louisiana life. “I heard Bobbie Gentry do ‘Ode to Billie Joe,’ and I said, ‘Oh god, I know that life.’ I told myself, if I ever do write anything, I’m gonna do like her, and write something I know about. It wasn’t too much later when ‘Polk’ and ‘Rainy Night’ (in Georgia) came out,” says White. “None of ’em were written for chart action or radio. I was just trying to get the pureness out of ’em,” White claims of his soulful country songs, which have been recorded by the likes of Brook Benton, Dusty Springfield and Tina Turner. White currently lives in Franklin, Tennessee, but he was living off Forest Hill-Irene Road in Germantown when he got the call from Presley’s camp. “His producer, Felton Jarvis, called me and said, ‘Hey man, we’re in Las Vegas. Elvis wants to send a plane …
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