Trash: A Poor White Journe

Here he slides back into the raw, blown out garage rock that he's so well known for and man does it sound good. The riffs are piled high all over this album and he's never sounded so urgent and utterly relevant. Everything distorts in just the right places and the hooks are guaranteed to stay in your head for a long, long time. He's stripped everything back and come back bigger, badder and better than ever. 2024 needs this man big time.

The 21st century saw Tony Joe White resume his recording and performing career, and experience a resurgence of critical interest in his older music as well. Since 2002, "the Swamp Fox" has recorded sporadically for his own Swamp imprint, and also had his back catalog remastered and reissued. Earlier in 2010, Rhino Handmade made available That On the Road Look, a previously unreleased live date. The Shine is a (mostly) low-key, basic affair. White wrote or co-wrote everything here with his wife, Leann. The band is a quintet: White plays guitars and harmonica with drummer Jack Bruno, cellist John Catchings, bassist George Hawkins, and Tyson Rogers on piano, organ, and Wurlitzer. The sound is warm and raw; the album feels like it was cut mostly live from the floor (with guitar and vocal overdubs added) and it's full of natural atmospherics. White's acoustic nylon-string guitar is prevalent, sometimes more so than his quavering, downright spooky baritone. His electric six-string work paints the backdrop.

Snowy White has an extensive and impressive CV, serving guitar duties with huge rock acts such as Thin Lizzy (Chinatown and Renegade albums), Pink Floyd (Animals & The Wall tours), Roger Waters, Joan Armatrading, Peter Green and Al Stewart amongst many others. Whilst still to be found touring with Pink Floyd & Roger Waters, Snowy also fronts his own bands 'The White Flames' and 'The Snowy White Blues Project' and has released a number of well received and commercially successful albums and even scored a hit single with the song Bird Of Paradise. 'In Our Time… Live' A Snowy White Blues Project album was recorded in Holland in 2009. Features Snowy alongside Matt Taylor: (guitar & vocals) Ruud Weber: (bass & vocals) Juan van Emmerloot: (drums).

The press may have dubbed Barry White "the walrus of love," but he was certainly the guru of something for many star crossed lovers across his Love Unlimited Orchestra output. While White rocketed up the charts with his solo "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More" in 1973, it was that same year's smash single "Love's Theme" that shot Love Unlimited Orchestra right up alongside him. Mostly instrumental, all orchestral, and packed with "that" tchka tchka guitar and full-fledged disco sound well before the genre reached maturity, Rhapsody in White set the stage and showcased the sounds that would shortly inspire a generation of producers, arrangers, and performers to start a million mirror balls spinning the world over. This album, in all its admitted smarminess, is a triumph.