Back on Halloween 2014, Tony Joe White sat in with the Foo Fighters to play his signature song “Polk Salad Annie” on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium, the onetime home of the Grand Ole Opry. Ironically, White — the country-funk singer and guitarist known as the “Swamp Fox” — had yet to appear on the Opry. That honor would come about four years later when he made his Opry debut on the same day he released Bad Mouthin’, his album of country blues.
Bad Mouthin’ would be White’s final album, and the Opry performance would be his last live show. He died less than a month later, on Oct. 24, at 75.
Today, White remains revered by a select group of music fans in the know, but it’s a segment that the singer’s son, Jody White, is determined to grow. This month, Jody oversaw a rerelease of The Real Thang, his dad’s 1980 album that featured songs like “Good-bye L.A.” and “Cowboy Singer.” And there’s more on the way.
“Everything that we put out is just another chapter of me spending more time understanding who he was during a certain period of life,” Jody White tells Rolling Stone. “When we worked together, he was like, ‘Jody, [music] is the most freedom I have ever had in my life. I know I can just make music and you’ll take care of the rest.’”
Even if The Real Thang didn’t land as an immediate hit upon its initial release, the album has become a cult classic of sound and scope — all of it powered by White’s notoriously gravelly rasp, his unique approach to the guitar, and plainspoken songwriting.
“He had so much soul, emotion, and feeling,” Jody says. “He was able to put that into words in a way that nobody else could.”
Take, for example, “Rainy Night in Georgia,” the 1970 hit by Brook Benton that White wrote and later recorded. White’s performance of the song on Austin City Limits in 1980, which was eventually released as the album Live in Austin, TX, is a ramshackle revelation.
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“It was perhaps the most unhinged performance in the history of Austin City Limits,” Jody recalls with laughter. “Most artists [on that show] bring full bands, horns and backup singers. Tony Joe shows up with a three-piece and just wings the whole thing. It’s nuts.”
Watching White’s full Austin City Limits appearance also reveals just how talented of a guitar player he was. Even Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits was a fan, according to Jody White. “Most of his shows were just him and a drummer,” Jody says. “[Other guitarists] are like, ‘Do you see the way he’s playing? That’s so unorthodox,’ because he’s carrying the bass with his thumb on the low E-string and playing the other strings simultaneously.”
Like his friend Waylon Jennings, White, raised on a cotton farm in Louisiana, made music his own way. Together they forged a decades-long friendship built on mutual stubbornness, authenticity, and a keen sense of songwriting. Jody remembers various visits to Jennings’ house with his dad to watch Dallas Cowboys games or gather at the table for Thanksgiving. Jennings, whose own son Shooter Jennings just released a new Waylon album, Songbird, appears on a handful of selections on The Real Thang.
“They were both cut from the same mold,” Jody says. “Even though my dad wasn’t an ‘outlaw’ in the sense that Waylon was, in the way [Tony Joe] approached life, business, and everything he did with music, he was an outlaw. He wasn’t going to let people tell him.”
That mentality came through in his father’s recording style, Jody says. His dad treated sessions like a live performance, talking to the other musicians in the room while the tape rolled, stopping and starting whenever he damn well pleased. “You realize why he didn’t have more radio hits, because he played every studio session like it was live,” Jody says. “If he wanted to play a minute-long guitar solo that just drifted off into total spaciness, he did it.”
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But White’s biggest influence was Elvis Presley, and in the 1960s, he performed Presley covers at a nightclub in Corpus Christi, Texas, Jody says. The roles were famously reversed in 1970 when Presley incorporated White’s “Polk Salad Annie” as a staple of his live shows during Presley’s jumpsuit era.
“When Elvis recorded his song and flew him to Vegas, that was one of the most surreal moments of my dad’s life,” Jody says. “That was his hero.”
But even with Presley pushing his songs and music labels wanting to work with him, White was turned off by the idea of self-promotion. Jody applauds his father’s fierce independence, even if it hindered his broader success. “He was just doing what he was doing because that’s who he was,” he says. “Not because he was trying to prove anything or accomplish anything or become more famous or win some award or sell a certain number of records. He just didn’t even know or care about any of that.”
In his final years, White was still actively recording and touring, albeit at his own pace and rhythm. According to Jody, when he opened his father’s storage unit after his death, he found boxes and boxes of tapes, stretching from 1965 to 2018. Listening to the earlier recordings, Jody was stunned by how high White’s voice was and learned from his mother that White’s baritone only emerged after his dad had his tonsils removed. He plans to keep releasing the tapes and elevate interest in White via ventures with the newly-formed Tony Joe White Supply Co.
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In its first inspired partnership, with Peaceful Side Brewery, the company launched a new craft lager called “Cowboy Singer.” Available around Nashville, including at the Turkey and the Wolf sandwich temple, which recently hosted a Real Thang listening party, it bears a grinning Tony Joe White on the can’s label.
“My dad left behind so much music that people haven’t heard,” Jody says. “I feel like a big purpose in my life is to bring this catalog to life and continue to build his legacy.”