Tony Joe White @Sage Gateshead October 28

Tony Joe White – vocal, guitar, harmonica. Drummer unknown.

(Review by Steve T)

I had it in my head that Tony Joe White recorded at Muscle Shoals, not that it would have made any difference to me, but the legendary studio was, with Memphis and Nashville, part of that southern triangle, the melting pot at the intersection between black and white music and culture which created such legendary, important, and sometimes fantastic music.

I must have been going to lots of Jazz gigs because I thought I could just turn up on the night and choose my seat. Luckily, I checked earlier in the week to find my choice limited to five tickets behind the stage on level two or eleven standing on level three.

I should have expected it; he’s a legend, an icon, the sort of artist who sells out Sage One on Saturday night at the Americana Festival. Like his peers, but even more so, he’s tough to pigeon-hole: country, blues, rock and roll, soul, funk, pop. Just prefix any or all of the above with ‘swamp’.

Popped in for the support, Jack Broadbent, who looked the part in big hair, big beard, cowboy boots and two big guitars that FDT would sell his dad for, but betrayed by local accent and charisma.

He turned one on its side to the delight of the full house. Some Delta Blues, he claimed, and played with a hip flask, though I was thinking his ancestors would have been at the other end of the whip, and very few have successfully breached the cultural divide (except in Jazz). The big question would be how well the headliner managed.

'Some Little Feat' and the audience were ecstatic. One lady asked who they are, and somebody asked her if she was in the right place. I wondered whether I was in the right place until he dedicated it to Lowell George, the ex-Mother who created Little Feat, and St Frank, who created the Mothers.

Big rock star entrance in hat, harmonica attachment, cowboy boots and, once seated, shades. I imagined some cultural discourse which had him as Neil Young for the thinking man or Bob Dylan for people who wanted to dig deeper.      

After the first song, he was joined by a drummer and I was troubled by the absence of any bass, particularly as the drummer seemed so pedestrian. The balance was only really redressed when his beaten up Fender Strat went into overdrive, his playing rough and raw, charged with energy and some serious feedback, wah wah and other effects. Thankfully, harmonica was kept to a minimum. His voice was low and gruff and, particularly when talking in his southern drawl, almost inaudible, so apologies to the drummer for failing to catch his name.

Couldn’t really make out any of the songs but vaguely recognised his biggest hit Polk Salad Annie and Even Trolls Love Rock and Roll, but that really wasn’t the point. Gradually the relentless, repetitive drumming, the course guitar, his fingers never far up the neck, his deep monotone voice, and the sheer power of the whole had a hypnotic effect which put huge grins on the faces of middle-aged men who should have grown up by now.

Georgia somebody shouted as he returned for an encore, referring to the rainy night of his most famous song, which presumably pays the bills, but in hindsight he was never going to play.

Did he successfully cross the cultural divide still so divisive when he started out in the late sixties and still unresolved today? Between black and white, underdog and privileged, oppressed and oppressor, outsider and insider, art and populism. The asking of the question is perhaps more important than the answer. 

Was mine one of the middle-aged faces with a perpetual grin? I definitely had my move on, that’s usual, but I didn’t make last lattes at the Jazz Caff.

Steve H.