The Isle of Wight Festival, created in 1968, reached its peak in 1970, when nearly 600,000 spectators gathered on this piece of land in the south of the United Kingdom. Fifty years later, Europe 1 looks back on the various concerts given for what was, one year after Woodstock, one of the last great hippie meetings. This Friday, Tony Joe White for whom the festival was a real springboard.
Elvis Presley's love at first sight
It is the story of a guitarist whose career has accelerated spectacularly in a few months. Until then confined to the second division of Nashville songwriters, navigating between blues, rock and country, living on small-scale concerts where he takes up his heroes, Tony Joe White is fortunately spotted by a producer smarter than the others: Bob Beckham.
His first album was not an immediate triumph but allowed him to make himself known to his peers, including a certain Elvis Presley, who then sought to revive himself and fell madly in love with what he heard one evening on the radio. Double bingo! The song will become a huge success for the two men and offer its father a place of choice in the major festivals of the time. On Friday August 28, 1970, in the early evening, on the stage of the Isle of Wight, to complete an exciting performance, Tony Joe White simply dressed in a brown T-shirt and beige jeans, shoots his trump card : the song is called "Polk Salad Annie".
The French plebiscite
Will you believe it if we tell you that apart from the drummer, borrowed from Jeff Beck's group, Tony Joe White is alone on stage? No bassist, no second guitarist and even less keyboards, he does everything himself with his guitar.
"Polk Salad Annie" is the story of a young girl from the Louisiana swamps raised the hard way in a problem family. She picks potentially deadly plants and even scares the crocodiles, who have yet eaten her grandmother. In one piece, swamp rock , swamp rock , an improbable mix of blues, rock, Cajun folklore or even country, was born. Once is not custom, the French will be the first to acclaim the talent of Tony Joe White.
Surprise of the Monument label when a certain Eddie Barclay orders cases of a 45 rpm that did not work in the United States, Soul Francisco . On the other side of the Atlantic, where he goes from time to time on peripheral radios, he is a hit, and here is this guy from Bayou on tour all over France, where he finds that the people of the countryside look a lot like his compatriots in the American Southeast.
A childhood on a cotton plantation
Between Tony Joe White and France, it is the beginning of a long love story. He is not, however, descended from the former settlers of Louisiana. Her mother is half Cherokee, her father runs a cotton plantation. The whole family picks it up, even the seven children, including Tony Joe, the youngest. It is in this atmosphere à la Tom Sawyer, a few kilometers from the Mississippi, that the future musician grows up, in this easily hostile nature, between alligators, panthers and snakes, but most often in the water to escape the heat. In the evening, we play music. Tony Joe discovers Lightnin 'Hopkins, the famous bluesman. Love at first sight ! Goodbye dreams of a career in baseball, he will be a guitarist.
Pieces inspired by his life
Head to Texas, where he drove dump trucks for a while on the highways under construction, then Nashville Tennessee. Second love at first sight: he hears "Ode To Billie Joe" on the radio, now a classic from singer Bobbie Gentry, also from the South. History speaks to him, it is his. From now on, he will compose his own pieces by inserting slices of his own life. "Polk Salad Annie" is not far away.
The machine is racing when another title from Tony Joe White is simultaneously found at the top of the bill. "Rainy Day in Georgia", which appears on the guitarist's second album, is covered by soul singer, Brook Benton, No. 4 in the United States. "Mind-blowing," White commented. "These few weeks have changed my life!" Yet his version is at least as brilliant:
This song will be covered by more than 100 different artists, including Johnny Rivers in particular. Over the years, Tony Joe White has become a sought-after composer. Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett or even country star Waylon Jennings will come to draw from its source.
Relaunched by Tina Turner
But the most incredible story takes place in the 80s. The career of the guitarist runs out of steam. He's missed the disco turn and retreated to his ranch, where he's chomping at the bit, a fishing rod in one hand and a beer in the other. But Tina Turner is going to take it out of the closet. For her future album, she asks to meet the genitor of "Polk Salad Annie", a song she adores. When she finds herself facing him, she bursts out laughing before hugging him: "All my life, I thought you were black!" Tony Joe White co-produced and composed four tracks of Foreign Affair , a planetary cardboard box. He's not going to let his second chance pass.
A collaboration with Joe Dassin
A new contract with a major record company, albums, tours allow him to return regularly to France, the country that has dedicated him. A little forgotten anecdote: he led an astonishing project at the end of the 70s for Joe Dassin. A bilingual cover album in two versions: Blue Country in French and Home Made Ice Cream in English. This will be Joe Dassin's last record before his death. Tony Joe White's will come much later, in 2018, at the age of 75. No drugs, no disease, a simple heart attack at his home in Tennessee, without pain if suffering, his son will say.
One last pleasure: "Groupy Girl", a title from 1970 which does not appear on an album but which the guitarist played in Wight. He mocks in a rather acidic way the light manners of young girls who idolize rock groups. With his voice from beyond the grave and his characteristic grunts, he promises them a future full of disillusionment on a music yet playful.
Just before passing away, Tony Joe White recorded a last album, Bad Mouthin ', a tribute to the blues he loved so much. He notably included "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley, the man who had launched his career. In a way, the circle had come full circle.
Find all the other episodes of our series "The Isle of Wight Festival, 50 years later":
> Episode 1: the last notes of Morrison's Doors
> Episode 2: Mighty Baby, talent without glory
> Episode 3: the unexpected concert of Brazilian exiles
> Episode 4: the Rory Gallagher revelation