Joe Henry | Artist

Joseph Lee Henry is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer born 1960 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a critically acclaimed solo artist as well as being an in-demand record producer, having three Grammy Award winning albums by other artists to his credit. Musically, Henry doesn't fit into an easily defined box and instead is influenced by folk, blues, jazz, rock and country. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Henry moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1985 and began performing in local music venues. He released his first album Talk of Heaven in 1986, which earned him a recording contract with A&M. His next albums albums Murder of Crows (1989) and Shuffletown (1990) displayed a much more characteristic style and scored positive reviews. Shuffletown, marked the start of a long-running partnership with artist & producer T-Bone Burnett, and a shift in Henry's musical direction towards an "alt-country" style redolent with atmospheric effects. Henry's next two LPs, Short Man's Room (1992) and Kindness of the World (1993), featured members of the band the Jayhawks, and his 1996 album Trampoline took a more experimental approach, working with Helmet guitarist Page Hamilton. 1999's Fuse was recorded with producers Daniel Lanois and T-Bone Burnett, who fully realised Henry's immersive atmospheric ideal. Scar, released in 2001, featured jazz musicians Marc Ribot, Brian Blade, Brad Mehldau and Ornette Coleman. According to Allmusic's Thom Jurek, the album 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." 2003's self-produced Tiny Voices album was also critically acclaimed, with AllMusic's Jurek describing it as "the sound of....electric guitars in an abandoned yet fully furnished Tiki bar in Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles." In total, Henry has released 16 studio albums to-date, standouts include Short Man's Room, Trampoline, Scar, Tiny Voices, Civilians and Blood From Stars. As a producer, Henry has completed about 50 albums by other artist. Three of these; Genuine Negro Jig by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, A Stranger Here by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Don't Give up on Me by Solomon Burke, won Grammy Awards for best album in their category. Henry married Madonna's sister, Melanie Ciccone, in 1987.

Artist Website: joehenrylovesyoumadly.com

Featured Albums: Joe Henry

Related Artists: Billy Bragg, T-Bone Burnett

Video Clips: The Glorious Dead, Sign, Trampoline