Polk Salad Annie

Over the past day, see, there was this song that kept going on and on in my head. An old song from the early 1970s when I was still schooling. Heard it over Radio RAAF Butterworth (RRB), the voice of the Royal Australian Air Force base in Butterworth, which was by far the best radio station in Malaysia. And then I remembered that I had the compact disc in my collection. No, actually, two compact discs. The singer was Tony Joe White and his song was Polk Salad Annie. 

Tony Joe White was born in Louisiana in 1943 and went successful internationally with this song. His style of music was described as swamp rock and he was even given the nickname Swamp Fox. He had a deep soulful southern drawl and a guitar technique which he referred to as his whomper stomper. 

But White was more than a recording artist. As a composer, many of his songs were covered by other well-known singers like Elvis Presley, Brook Benton, Ray Charles, Kris Kristofferson and others. Even Tina Turner too, if I'm not mistaken. Tony Joe White died from a heart attack in 2018.

So these are the two compact discs in my music collection. The first is called Polk Salad Annie (originally titled Black And White) and the second is The Best Of Tony Joe White.

Below are two videos of Polk Salad Annie that can be found on YouTube. The first is Tony Joe White's appearance on a British television show in 1970 while the second is Elvis' interpretation of the song in one of his concerts. Whose version is better: the original or the cover?

Bonus: Here is a video of Tony Joe White cooking his Polk Salad Annie and Undercover Agent for the Blues at The Basement in Australia (presumably in Sydney) when he was already 65 years old in 2008. A real masterclass performance. He needed only a drummer to accompany him throughout. No other musicians were required.