I don’t really remember when I first heard Tony Joe White, but probably sometime during the 1970s as he appeared on Dutch television in 1977 with Soulful Eyes.
Definitely I heard Elvis singing his Polk Salad Annie and much later some version of Rainy Night in Georgia…
But what really set me off were his 2 Meter Sessions performances, lean and mean solo performances of Tunica Motel and (You're Gonna Look) Good In Blues.
Over the years I bought several ‘swamp fox’ albums and downloaded more, he certainly was a prolific recording artist.
Between 1969 and 2018 he released 30 albums, not to mention various live albums and multiple ‘best of’ collections.
In 2021 a posthumous Smoke from the Chimney (Easy Eye Sound) came out as well, thanks to the smart production of Dan Auerbach.
As his son Jody discovered boxes of reel-to-reel tapes filled with hundreds of demos that no one had ever heard, expect more to come I guess.
His career has had ups and downs, he recorded 3 albums in 1969-70 (produced by Billy Swan) and had a surprise hit with Polk Salad Annie.
During 1976 - 1983 more albums were released but without much success, combining his classic swamp rock sound with disco didn’t do the trick.
1989 was a turning point due to his contributions (4 songs, incl. Steamy Windows & Undercover Agent for the Blues!) to Tina Turner’s Foreign Affair album, both as a songwriter and guitar player.
After that his career started picking up, his 1991 album Closer to the Truth I still consider a must-have!
However what many people don’t realize is the huge number of songs he wrote and a significant number of those were covered by loads of more well-known artists (besides Elvis and Tina) such as Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, Rory Gallagher, etc.
A thorough check on the Net revealed that surprisingly enough there never has been a Tony Joe White Songs Covered collection released officially, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing similar appeared on any music blog either…
Lo and behold, another candidate for the full JOKONKY treatment had appeared.
However, selecting a varied collection of covers wasn’t easy, Rainy Night in Georgia alone has been covered over a hundred of times!
Therefore I opted for a 2 Volume Song Book which at least tackles most of the classic covers, plus quite a few not that well-known ones…
In the end I settled for these artists covering 36 tracks:
Brook Benton, Clarence Carter, Elvis Presley, Link Wray, Rory Gallagher, Roy Head, Wilson Pickett, Joe Dassin & Tony Joe White, Johnny Adams, The Celibate Rifles, Tina Turner, John Mayall, Sleepy LaBeef, Buddy Guy, Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood, Elkie Brooks, Robert Cray, Johnny Ray Jones, Dusty Springfield, Carmen McRae, Christine Perfect, Ray Charles, Joe Dassin & Tony Joe White, The Cruel Sea, Luke Walter Jr, B.B. King, Greg "Fingers" Taylor, Jimmie Van Zant, Ten Cats Laughing, Ana & Milton Popovic, Chuck Berry, Willie Nelson with Tony Joe White, Leon Russell & Jamey Johnson, Colin James, & Tom Jones.
