Joe Henry is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Critically acclaimed for his body of work, Henry has gained a steady cult following throughout his career. Joe's musical style spans several genres, including alt. country, rock, jazz and folk. Joe is also highly regarded by many other musicians, especially for his evolving sound, evocative and introspective lyrics and superb producing skills.
Biography
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Early years
Henry's first albums, including "Talk of Heaven" (1986) and "Murder of Crows" (1989), introduced his facility for intelligent songwriting yet tended to be overburdened by their production values; they passed into obscurity after attracting some mainstream and industry attention. His third album "Shuffletown" (1990) was the first to represent a shift in musical direction, and included a group of mostly acoustic players recoded live, directly to two-track master tape. His sound, which thereafter has avoided easy pigeonholes, then veered toward what was then emerging as "alt country". This period's emblematic artifacts are the critically noted "Short Man's Room" (1992) and "Kindness of the World" (1993), which shared members of the country-rock band the Jayhawks. These two albums were specifically written with the Jayhawks as backing band, as Joe was sharing a tour with them during the same period.
Musical transition
1996's Trampoline, his sixth LP, began to explore the stylistic dynamism that has characterized his later albums. "Trampoline" employed metal guitarist Page Hamilton (who demonstrated his own eagerness to stretch by collaborating on the album) and created a breadth of style one reviewer called "idiosyncratic broadmindedness". [1]
Fuse (1999) continued Henry's experimentalism with its trip hop shadings. One review of the album states that Fuse has "real weight, emotion and beauty that is both unmistakable and unforgettable". [2]
Early 2000s
Scar, released in 2001, was seen as a breakthrough: Henry's evocative songs had only traces of his early career's country sound, and the band on the record consisted mainly of jazz musicians (Marc Ribot, Brian Blade and Brad Mehldau among others), including an appearance by saxophonist Ornette Coleman—in a very rare cameo—who steals the show on "Richard Pryor Addresses A Tearful Nation."
Scar earned very positive reviews, including one by Allmusic's Thom Jurek, who wrote that Henry "has moved into a space that only he and Tom Waits inhabit in that they are songwriters who have created deep archetypal characters that are composites—metaphorical, allegorical, and 'real'—of the world around them and have created new sonic universes for them to both explore and express themselves in. Scar is a triumph not only for Henry—who has set a new watermark for himself—but for American popular music, which so desperately needed something else to make it sing again." [3]
In 2001, Henry sang on the song "Alleluia" from Julia Fordham's album, Concrete Love.
2003's self-produced Tiny Voices, his first on Epitaph's Anti label, inspired more praise from reviewers. Reviewer Jurek described the album as "the sound of Hemingway contemplating the Cuban Revolution with William Gaddis, the sound of Buddy DeFranco and Jimmy Giuffre trying to talk to Miles Davis about electric guitars in an abandoned yet fully furnished Tiki bar in Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles." [4]
In the early 2000s, Henrry was also an inaugural member of the Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists. [1]
Production Work
Henry produced Teddy Thompson's 2000 album Teddy Thompson, a critically acclaimed album from the son of British folk legends, Linda Thompson and Richard Thompson. Henry also produced Solomon Burke's 2002 album Don't Give Up On Me, which won Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2003 Grammy Awards. 2005 releases produced by Henry include Ani DiFranco's Knuckle Down, Aimee Mann's 1970s concept album The Forgotten Arm, and Bettye LaVette's I've Got My Own Hell to Raise.
He also produced the multi-artist album I Believe to My Soul, which featured Allen Toussaint, Mavis Staples, Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas and Billy Preston.
In 2006, Henry teamed with Toussaint, producing his collaborative album with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse.
In September 2006, Joe Henry and his longtime hero Loudon Wainwright III began composing the music for the Judd Apatow movie Knocked Up. Snippets of instrumentals were used as background score for the film, but the full versions of the songs make up Wainwright's 2007 album Strange Weirdos. Henry produced Mary Gauthier's 2007 album Between Daylight and Dark.
Return to the studio
Joe Henry's 10th LP, Civilians, was released in 2007 on the ANTI- label. The album was mainly received to strong and positive reviews achieving an average score of 77 on Metacritic. Pop Matters described the album as "powerful and exquisite." The song "God Only Knows," the final track on the album, was used in a "TCM Remembers 2008" TV spot, a video memoriam of actors who have died in 2008.[2]
2009: Blood From Stars
Joe began 2009 with a tour of Australia, playing shows in Melbourne and Sydney with bassist David Piltch in January. On May 8, 2009, Joe's record label, Anti, announced via an official press release that a new album ""Blood From Stars"" is due for release on August 18. The direction of the album is said to be an entirely different musical direction for Joe, with some blues influences. Joe is also embarking on a short tour of Spain.
Personal life
Henry is married, since 1987, to Melanie Ciccone, sister of Madonna. [5] Henry's wife talked him into letting her send Madonna a demo of his song "Stop", which was reworked and recorded as "Don't Tell Me" (from Madonna's 2000 album Music). Henry's own tango-tinged version of the song appeared on Scar and was featured in an episode of "The Sopranos". Henry and his sister-in-law recorded a duet, "Guilty By Association", on the charity album Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, and collaborated on the songs "Jump" on Confessions on a Dance Floor and "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" on Hard Candy.
Discography
- Talk of Heaven (1986)
- Murder of Crows (1989)
- Shuffletown (August 31, 1990)
- Short Man's Room (June 16, 1992)
- Kindess of the World (September 28, 1993)
- Fireman's Wedding EP (February 15, 1994)
- Trampoline (March 26, 1996)
- Fuse (March 9, 1999)
- Scar (May 15, 2001)
- Tiny Voices (September 23, 2003)
- Civilians (September 11, 2007)
- Blood From Stars (August 18, 2009)
External links
References
