Southern Soul floats my boat

I was turned on to Judy White only recently by John Ridley at his excellent page at the equally excellent Soul Of The Net. There he features “Save Me”, a great deep soul song Judy cut in 1969 ably assisted by the Isley Brothers on the T-Neck label. I say this is the first time I became aware of Judy White, but then again maybe not. I present exhibit A…
This is a snippet from a “Soul House” sales list from 1977 (“Soul House” were based in Wakefield UK and are now probably long gone). As you can see the record featured in this post was marked by me with TWO dashes. Normally I marked records I was interested in with a single dash or maybe an asterisk. So did the two dashes mean I had heard the record and desperately wanted it? Don’t know, can’t remember. All I know is I didn’t buy the record then and it was only after hearing “Save Me” at John Ridley’s page about 18 months ago that I started – or possibly restarted – my hunt for Judy White records in earnest. The search was fruitless until a couple of months ago when, within the space of a couple of weeks I finally secured both “Save Me” and “Satisfaction Guaranteed”/”I’ll Cry” for very reasonable sums.
“Save Me” you can hear at John Ridley’s page, and it’s a peach. I’m featuring “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “I’ll Cry” here. A single with both sides as strong as this doesn’t come along too often. Two slabs of gorgeous southern soul recorded in Sheffield, Alabama at Quin Ivey’s Quinvy Studio. I think this is about as good as it can possibly get. No words from me could possibly adequately describe the tracks, you need to listen to them.

I have been unable to find much information on Judy beyond that offered by John Ridley. But here is what I have found.
Judy is the daughter of Josh White. I had never heard of Josh White but reading up on him it appears he was an accomplished and high profile blues guitarist and singer in the 30s. Into the 40s he played alongside jazz artists such as Billie Holiday and played the society circuit and subsequently moved more into the sphere of protest songs and folk music where has was to gain a significant white audience. He was a major draw on the folk circuit in the pre Dylan 60s and also toured Europe (coming to the UK several times) and Scandinavia during the 60s. He died in 1969. (The picture here shows Judy with her Judy's father and brother and sister Beverley).

A review of a video of appearances he made in Sweden in 1967 mentions Judy (more specifically her voice) as being the best reason for watching the video. It also states that she was 19 at the time which would mean she was probably born in 1948 1947. It seems that Judy accompanied her father (together with her brother Josh White Jr) on many stage performances in the 60s as a backing singer.

The Swedish tour must have just predated her recording career at the Buddah label. As John Ridley points out, that started with her appearing as one half of Bongi & Judy. Bongi was Bongi Makeba, daughter of Miriam Makeba. It is likely that Bongi and Judy met in New York in the late fifties. The White family were by that time based in New York and Miriam Makeba made appearances at the Village Vanguard in 1959 and also a guest appearance at Harry Belafonte’s concerts at Carnegie Hall which were also, I believe, attended by Josh White. Bongi Makeba would later die in 1985 following complications in childbirth.

Judy White cut a number of solo singles for Buddah before moving to T-Neck (which was distributed by Buddah) in 1969. Only two singles from her are known on this imprint.

I have only heard snippets of some of her other Buddah output. Based on that I would say that the three songs mentioned here are the standouts - but what standouts! Judy certainly had a fine voice and it seems a shame that she doesn’t appear to have recorded solo beyond her T-Neck outings. On All Music I can only find two references to her – as providing backing vocals on an Archie Shepp album in 1972, and on an album by her brother Josh White Jr. in 1978. It’s possible the death of her father hit her hard. Maybe she also moved onto the folk circuit. Who knows? Wherever life took her the soul music genre ended up the poorer for it.

UPDATE February 2008! Judy is alive and well and living in Georgia USA. She has contacted this blog(see the comments!) and let us know where life took her after her time at T-Neck.

Judy White - Satisfaction Guaranteed 1969?

Judy White - I'll Cry 1969?

Update:
You can find both sides of this 45 on the CD "Buddah Deep Soul" (be aware that only a few of the tracks on the CD actually qualify as Deep Soul).