Joe Henry has been talking about working with Elvis -
( extract)
"If a beautiful woman were to stroll past your front stoop on a summer evening, startling even the young toughs out for a smoke, you wouldn't need me to make sense of it for you," Joe Henry writes in the producer's note to the album "I Believe to My Soul."
"I Believe to My Soul," recorded in June with a band handpicked by Henry, is a remarkable album. So is Solomon Burke's 2002 release "Don't Give Up on Me" and Bettye LaVette's recent " I Got My Own Hell To Raise " . And though the first recording sessions were conducted just a couple of weeks ago, you'd be wise to bet that a forthcoming collaboration between Toussaint, perhaps the greatest living ambassador of New Orleans music, and the redoubtable singer Elvis Costello, will join this list.
In light of this track record, the Toussaint/Costello project is especially intriguing. Henry had talked Toussaint into making a solo album, but after Hurricane Katrina's aftermath left Toussaint's piano underwater in his New Orleans home, things changed.
"He went to New York and has been camped there for a while, and as one of the most prominent representatives of New Orleans music, he's been playing quite a lot," Henry said. "Elvis lives there part of the year also, and they renewed their relationship, having worked together before on Elvis' 'Spike' album. I think the wheels started turning."
Several days of recording were set to take place just after Thanksgiving, with another set of sessions due later at Piety, the first recording studio back in operation in New Orleans.
"It was really important to Allen to return, to show that music is not a dead idea in New Orleans, even now," Henry said. "And also, that we can't just talk about wanting New Orleans to come back, that if we really are serious about that, we have to go down and put some money into the music business there."
In a radio feature Joe said
EC is going to sing a number of classic songs written by Allen Toussaint. EC and Allen will write some songs together and they will also record a new song that EC wrote with Allen in mind and that Allen will arrange.
The Imposters will be involved and Allen and the Band. Allen will be arranging for horns. The songs will be recorded live.
Joe said:" it will be mayhem, I don't know what is going to happen, but it will be very musical and interesting".
( Submitted by sweetest punch)
Living in the precious, and soulful, musical moment
Sunday, December 11, 2005
MARTY HUGHLEY
The Oregonian
"If a beautiful woman were to stroll past your front stoop on a summer evening, startling even the young toughs out for a smoke, you wouldn't need me to make sense of it for you," Joe Henry writes in the producer's note to the album "I Believe to My Soul."
"But if the young lady also happened to be the great-granddaughter of both Fats Waller and Amelia Earhart, you might like me to point that out to you; then that long, hard second look might offer nuances that you had initially failed to consider, like that swing in her step or the faraway look in her eyes."
Perhaps "young lady" isn't the phrase most likely to be in your mind while listening to "I Believe to My Soul" -- an album featuring such mature women as Mavis Staples, Irma Thomas and Ann Peebles, plus a couple of men, Allen Toussaint and Billy Preston, of the same generation. (Peebles, at 58, is the youngest of them.)
But the allure is there nonetheless. And the nuances as well. Henry's references to Waller and Earhart aren't idle; there's a sense of history evident here, and that history includes joyfulness and innovation in music, as well as personal courage and achievement.
And while this is rhythm-and-blues cut from a classic cloth, there is indeed a swing in the step of these performances, a subtle yet unmistakable sign of artists living in the precious moment, not the preserved past.
"I Believe to My Soul," recorded in June with a band handpicked by Henry, is a remarkable album. So is Solomon Burke's 2002 release "Don't Give Up on Me" and Bettye LaVette's recent "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise." And though the first recording sessions were conducted just a couple of weeks ago, you'd be wise to bet that a forthcoming collaboration between Toussaint, perhaps the greatest living ambassador of New Orleans music, and the redoubtable singer Elvis Costello, will join this list.
The list in this case being 21st-century soul classics produced by Joe Henry.
One of the great, under-recognized singer-songwriters of our time, Henry is typically modest about this new, almost coincidentally acquired sub-specialty. "If anybody ever introduced me as a record producer," he said in a recent phone interview, "I would drop dead.
"I identify myself as an artist who adopts that position on the other side of the control-room glass in order to get a certain thing accomplished. I don't see a distinction between if I'm singing the songs or someone else is doing it."
Starved for soul
Henry's been gaining a reputation as a producer in recent years; he handled the job for the latest releases by both Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco. But it's been his work with these under-appreciated veterans that's been especially distinguished.
While doing interviews for the Burke album, he says in the "I Believe. . ." liner notes, "it became apparent that many others, not just myself, were starved for a contemporary version of authentic soul. . . . And I realized I had a choice: I could lie around the house in my bathrobe and hope that, say, Ann Peebles would one day be directed by the universe to seek me out as a conspirator, or I could imagine a scenario that would give me an excuse to call her.
"My bathrobe in tatters, and my house too noisy to lie in, I chose the latter."
By this time, his work with Burke was beginning to work as a calling card. "I did notice that when I started to pursue projects I was interested in, it made a difference," he said in the interview. "When I approached Ann Peebles, she didn't know who I was, but she knew Solomon and knew he'd just had a record that won a Grammy."
Henry doesn't bring a big name or sales cachet to the table, but he brings the right ideas and attitude. "My fundamental starting point is that I work from a place of respect with these artists, not from a point of nostalgia," he said. Much of Henry's magic touch involves keeping everyone from falling into nostalgia, that seductive trap. At the same time, he also avoids the cheap bid for contemporary relevance, the host-of-young-guest-stars approach that Carlos Santana's career now rests upon.
"It strikes me as wrong to say, 'I've got Irma Thomas, now I have to get her together with Wyclef Jean,' Henry said. "That's asking a mature artist to work in a style she's not necessarily interested in or suited to. I'm trying to walk a line that I recognize is a very fine line: doing something that's authentic to a classic style yet that is relevant to where these artists are now. If you can do that in a musical way, then I think you'll really have something."
Part of keeping nostalgia at bay is forgetting about pat notions of what constitutes soul music.
"Any music that is timeless and enduring is soulful -- whether you're talking about Caruso or Piaf or George Jones," Henry said. "I never think in terms of 'capital S' Soul Music.' That'd be the kiss of death. If I started doing that, death couldn't come quick enough. . . . I'd rather say, 'Let's just get these people who know how to deliver a beautiful song, and see what we can do.' "
A quick worker
What Henry's done is craft ingeniously sympathetic contexts for singers whose distinctive voices and rich, nuanced delivery have an incredible amount to offer listeners.
He always records quickly, seldom taking more than a week to track an entire album, resulting in a winning immediacy. For Burke's album, he persuaded such legends as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Tom Waits to write songs specifically for the project, thus giving the album star power without stealing time from Burke's own natural wonder of a voice.
For "I Believe to My Soul," he had each singer bring in a couple of songs they'd never recorded before, either their own compositions or such inspired choices as Curtis Mayfield's "Keep on Pushing" and the traditional "You Must Have That True Religion" (both covered by Staples). LaVette, a stalwart of the Detroit music scene, turns her laserlike emotional intensity on a repertoire borrowed from such young women writers as Fiona Apple, Roseanne Cash and Sinead O'Connor.
As great as "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise" is, though, it didn't come close to preparing me for the power of LaVette's October performance at the Doug Fir Lounge. When I tell Henry this, he sums up the matter perfectly, a hint of his North Carolina upbringing in his voice: "She's got a thing."
In light of this track record, the Toussaint/Costello project is especially intriguing. Henry had talked Toussaint into making a solo album, but after Hurricane Katrina's aftermath left Toussaint's piano underwater in his New Orleans home, things changed.
"He went to New York and has been camped there for a while, and as one of the most prominent representatives of New Orleans music, he's been playing quite a lot," Henry said. "Elvis lives there part of the year also, and they renewed their relationship, having worked together before on Elvis' 'Spike' album. I think the wheels started turning."
Several days of recording were set to take place just after Thanksgiving, with another set of sessions due later at Piety, the first recording studio back in operation in New Orleans.
"It was really important to Allen to return, to show that music is not a dead idea in New Orleans, even now," Henry said. "And also, that we can't just talk about wanting New Orleans to come back, that if we really are serious about that, we have to go down and put some money into the music business there."
As for the prospects for Henry's projects within the music business at large, he maintains a philosophical detachment, even as he knows a "capital S" Soul tag might well be glued onto the work.
"The industry is not willing to put anything out to the mainstream without creating a package; they're stymied by something that is nuanced," he said.
But to consider whether he's saving soul music, or helping to make a new kind of soul music, or anything like that -- well, you might as well trip that young lovely as she walks past your stoop.
"It's just not my concern," Henry said. "I'm not saying that to be dodgy. It's just beside the point."
Marty Hughley: 503-221-8383; martyhughley@news.oregonian.com
©2005 The Oregonian