TONY JOE WHITE : WARNER ARCHIVES - THE BEST OF TONY JOE WHITE

1. Polk Salad Annie
2. Soul Francisco
3. Willie and Laura Mae Jones
4. Rainy Night in Georgia
5. Roosevelt and Ira Lee (Night of the Mossacin)
6. Stockholm Blues
7. High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish
8. Old Man Willis
9. The Train I'm On
10. If I Ever Saw a Good Thing
11. As the Crow Flies
12. Even Trolls Love Rock and Roll
13. Backwoods Preacher Man
14. Takin' the Midnight Train
15. Did Somebody Make a Fool out of You
16. They Caught the Devil and Put Him in Jail in Eudora, Arkansas
17. Saturday Night in Oak Grove, Louisiana
18. I've Got a Thing About You Baby
19. For Ol' Times Sake
20. Ol' Mother Earth

Label : Warner Bros.

Release Year : 1993

Length : 69:04

Review (AllMusic) : Twenty tracks from 1969-1973, the period of Tony Joe White's greatest success, including "Polk Salad Annie" and White's own version of his composition "Rainy Night in Georgia." Most of this is quality swamp rock with pop-soul-conscious production; on cuts like "High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish," it sounds very much like he was trying to achieve a groove in the mold of Bobbie Joe Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe." Sometimes he gets real down-home in a stomping backwoods blues style that makes him sound a little like a White counterpart to John Lee Hooker, as on "Stockholm Blues." If there's any criticism to be levied against this music, it's in its occasional lack of variety, White mining staple swamp rock boogie riffs for all they're worth. However, few, if any, performers and writers were as skilled as White in doing so, and he has a fine knack for sharp storytelling lyrics.