BKP sent this along and it deserved a shot. The man wrote "Rainy Night In Georgia," for crissakes! He has to be at least seventy years old because I was probably eleven when "Polk Salad Annie" was a hit...chomp, chomp, chomp... He was a Louisiana native doing the swamp-rock thing but CCR was having more success with the genre at the same time. He disappeared for essentially a decade and a half before landing a sweet gig with Tina Turner on her "Foreign Affair" album. He wrote the title track and the Top 40 hit, "Steamy Windows," had two more co-writing credits and played on the record. It gave him renewed visibility in the European markets, which served him well through the 90's. Now he is on Yep Roc records, which is home to several esteemed artists (Chuck Prophet, Gang of Four, Josh Rouse, Liam Finn and Paul Weller, to name a few), but I'm afraid that didn't help the quality of this newest record.
From what I gather, the label left him alone to do his thing, which is admirable on their part, however, the stripped-down approach/"let's hit record and see what happens" mentality yielded what some would call a laid back vibe. I call it dispassionate. There wasn't anything here to stir me to further spins. Mumbled lyrics, slow-hand guitar...boring. By the time I reached the back third of the record, I was almost lulled to sleep, but then the tempo increased on track seven, and by God, White sounded exhausted at the pace before the song was half over!
I'm going to keep one song for posterity's sake, the longest one on the album...
WAKE UP!
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