White serves up "Hoodoo"

White was born in Oak Grove, La. in 1943 and was raised on a cotton farm owned by his father. After he finished schooling, following a stint driving a truck in Georgia, he formed a series of bands and took to the road. A trip to Nashville in 1966 was marked by one lucky break after another, and his fruitful recording career began at the country-soul crucible of Monument Records.

His best known songs are Polk Salad Annie and Rainy Night in Georgia. Through the years, his songs have been recorded by everyone from Tina Turner to Elvis Presley to Ray Charles.

Culled from an initial stack of roughly 17 tunes, the 9 songs on "Hoodoo" was cut mostly live to tape with many first takes.

"There's some actual magic that came over all of us when we were doing this," White said. "I would sit down with my drummer Cadillac (Bryan Owings) and my bass player the Troll (Steve Forrest), play twenty seconds of the tune, and then say 'We're gonna hit record, and you just play what comes into your heart.' It's like everyone is getting the hoodoo sensation. Spontaneity is beautiful. And since it's our studio, there's no hurry: no one is over our shoulder saying when we gotta get in and when we gotta get out...we were the record company."

"Hoodoo" features autobiographical songs about his life growing up on farm and learning the blues (9 Foot Sack), tales of rural Mississippi (Alligator Mississippi) and a tale of his trek homeward after the Nashville flood of 2010 (The Flood).

"There's not a push nowhere," he said about any pressure. "Maybe I'll stop playing shows and making records when the songs quit coming to me. But they still come to me. You see, I don't work for a song, but once I get a hold of it I don't let go. I just keep writing, and when I do, I want to go out and play it for somebody. It's the songwriting that keeps me going."

Songs on the CD are:
1) The Gift
2) Holed Up
3) Who You Gonna Hoodoo Now?
4) 9 Foot Sack
5) Alligator, Mississippi
6) The Flood
7) Storm Comin'
8) Gypsy Epilogue
9) Sweet Tooth