Tony Joe White – Uncovered

The old swamp dog’s voice has thickened and his range is even more restricted than it used to be, but Tony Joe White’s lyrical vision remains as sharp as a cottonmouth’s fang, and he can still pack more emotional wallop into a whisper than a lot of cowpunk pretenders can summon from an entire night’s worth of phlegm-flecked screams.

Even White’s simplest sentiments are imbued with subtlety and paradox. His muck-clogged baritone transforms an ode to country living, “Not One Bad Thought”, into a sigh of relief from a psychic traveler returning to Eden after a season in hell. “Run For Cover”, a meld of swampy mystery and wah-wah-fueled hipness with fatback horns providing the bridge between, is a gloriously overwrought celebration of a sexual union wracked with apocalyptic fury. White’s voice sounds weary and tender, yet shot through with an ominous erotic charge.

White infuses two hard-time ballads, “Taking The Midnight Train” and a reprise of his classic “Rainy Night In Georgia”, with both gut-wrenching pathos and bluesy redemption. The real spine-tingler is Waylon Jennings’ “Shakin’ The Blues”, a grittily sentimental duet between a weakened but unbowed Jennings and White that was one of Waylon’s last recordings before his death in 2002.

Other guests — J.J. Cale, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler — comport themselves with grace throughout. The only misstep was inviting Michael McDonald, who bludgeons emotions as if they were baby seals to annihilate the brooding tenderness White establishes on the ballad “Baby, Don’t Look Down”.