Thursday, August 16, 2007

Joe Henry announces September dates

In celebration of his second Anti- album, Civilians – due September 11th, 2007 – veteran singer, songwriter, guitarist and acclaimed producer Joe Henry has announced two select East Coast dates. On September 20th, Henry will co-headline a show at New York City’s Gramercy Theater with folk singer/ songwriter Mary Gauthier, followed by a performance the following night, September 21st, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. A warm up performance in advance of these events will occur on September 14th at Largo in Los Angeles.

The twelve song Civilians is already being called the most alluring and artfully direct album of his storied ten album career. The disc was recorded and mixed in his home studio and counts the talents of guest pianist Van Dyke Parks on the brilliantly poignant “Civil War” and the emotive, lilting “I Will Write My Book.”

Having produced artists as diverse as Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann, and Elvis Costello and the 2003 Grammy Award winning Solomon Burke disc Don’t Give Up On Me – plus his longtime hero Loudon Wainwright III for the soundtrack to the smash Judd Apatow comedy Knocked Up – Henry says all of these collaborations have informed Civilians.

“As a producer, you can see a project in a completely different way,” says Henry, who also recently worked with Richie Havens, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, John Doe and Bob Forrest on the soundtrack to the upcoming, Bob Dylan-inspired Todd Haynes film, I’m Not There: Suppositions On A Film Concerning Dylan. “Working with other artists has given me an incredible education, so that when I come back to do work for myself and plug into the music in a different way, I’m able to see where I’m going with an added dimension.”

In the four years since his last disc, 2003’s acclaimed Tiny Voices, Henry has also produced Teddy Thompson, and Bettye LaVette. Lately, he has been hard at work on the forthcoming release by aforementioned Gauthier, who he shares the stage with on September 20th. Spending time in the company of so many of this generation’s finest songwriters has had a profound impact on Henry, who turns out his strongest set of songs to date with Civilians.

With jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist and chamberlain organist Patrick Warren, guitarist and dobro player Greg Leisz, bassist Dave Pilch and longtime drummer Jay Bellerose, Henry has assembled an ideal cast for Civillians. From the blues-inflected, “Time Is A Lion” – replete with infectious hand claps – or the memorable love-torn ballad “Scare Me To Death” to the album’s centerpiece “Our Song,” Civilians finds the troubadour balancing sharp personal and political observations with assurance and sophistication.

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