TONY JOE WHITE
9 p.m., Juanita’s. $10.
If you’re not intimately familiar with Tony Joe White, here’s what you
need to know about The Swamp Fox: One, it’s this writer’s opinion that
his first album, “Black & White,” is 35 minutes of the coolest music
ever put on wax, period; two, his rich songbook has been covered by
tons of familiars, notably, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield
and Elvis Presley; three, he wrote the ineffable classic “Rainy Night in
Georgia.” Done. All rumbling baritone and guttural, tongue-y patois,
Tony Joe White never enjoyed mainstream domestic success here the way
he (inexplicably) did in France, but his particular, racially ambiguous
take on electric swamp rock has been thrusting through American music
for decades. Tony Joe’s steadily made music for 40-plus years, mixing
curious swamp rock hybrids with a foray into Michael McDonald-esque
yacht rock, a loop and breakbeat-infused album of revisited hits and a
brief detour into — gasp — disco territory! (Find his
peccadillo-praising 1980 single “I Get Off on It” on hypem.com to turn that grimace into a quick
grin.) For those who are quick to disparage this show as a cash-in
revival, you’re out of luck and in for another surprise. John
Paul Keith and the One Four Fives, the jaunty Memphis-based
regulars who reside on a low branch of the Tony Joe White family tree,
open the show.