Carry on cowboy
From swamp to Stetson to disco: how TJW tackled the ’80s. By Sylvie Simmons.
Tony Joe White ★★★
The Real Thang
SWAMP. DL/LP
High roller: Tony Joe White explored more experimental territory in the 1980s.
WHEN TONY Joe White died in 2018 his son Jody, for the best part of two decades his manager, took on the task of keeping his father’s musical legacy alive. In the home studio where his dad did much of his recording up to the end of his life, he found a stash of reel-to-reel tapes of songs and demos, many unfinished, all unreleased. Since then he’s been tirelessly digitising and releasing them. First was Smoke From The Chimney (2021), an interesting collaboration with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. With a band of Nashville studio musicians, Auerbach fleshed out the songs Jody White gave him and produced a ‘new’ posthumous Tony Joe White album.