Joe Henry has established a reputation as one of the world’s finest producers, working with some legendary singers and putting a contemporary spin on a classic soul sound. His latest production teams Elvis Costello with the great Allen Toussaint on the post-Katrina The River In Reverse. 

By Brian Wise

During my recent trip to the US I bumped into the manager of an up and coming band who were about to record their new album. “You should get Joe Henry top produce it,” I suggested helpfully. Not that I am an expert on these matters, it just seemed that the band’s sound might suit Henry’s production.

“Too late!” he moaned. “Joe is way too expensive and in too much demand now.”

I am not sure that financial reward would be one of the criteria for Henry taking on a production job – after all he has battled for twenty years to get some recognition – but I do know that his recent productions have rightfully made him one of the most sought after producers in America.

It seems a far cry from the days, just over a decade ago, when Joe Henry toured Australia as a critically acclaimed singer songwriter, trying to pump the sales on his locally released albums Short Man’s Room and Kindness Of The World. I have to remind others of the gig at the now defunct Continental Café because Henry is the sort of musician who managed to slip under the radar despite the fact that he put out fine albums, wrote some memorable songs with vivid imagery and was co-produced by T Bone Burnett early in his career.  

Chris Wilson, who was playing with Shane O’Mara at the time was on the same bill and remembers Henry as a ‘really nice person.’ So it is nice to know that nice guys can finish first. It’s also nice to know that nice guys who are also music fans can finish first as well because when you talk to Joe Henry you get the sense that he is first and foremost a fan.  

In the past six years – since he started to get into production on a more regular basis - he has produced Solomon Burke, Betty Lavette, Aimee Mann, Susan Tedeschi, John Doe, Teddy Thompson, Jim White, Ani DiFranco and now Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. For the brilliant I Believe To My Soul album he assembled Toussaint, Billy Preston, Mavis Staples and managed to capture Irma Thomas’ best vocal performances in decades. For Our New Orleans 2005 he had Toussaint record a new studio version of his superb ‘Yes We Can’ (a hit more than 30 years ago for Lee Dorsey) and coaxed another superb vocal from Thomas on ‘Back Water Blues.’

This is not the schedule of someone who is producing merely because he wants the work.

Joe Henry was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1965 and lived there until 1965 when he moved to Atlanta then onto Ohio and Detroit, where he eventually met and married one of the Ciccone sisters (the other one being Madonna, who later recorded his song ‘Don’t Tell Me). One report suggests that he was in the same class as Jeffrey Dahmer. He went to college in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to New York in the mid-80’s just as his debut album was released. He settled in Los Angeles in 1990 with his wife and son. According to Henry’s biography he wears and 8 1/2 size shoe, is a fabulous cook, an excellent drive and is allergic to many brands of exterior oil-based paint.

Henry’s major label debut, Murder Of Crows, was produced by Anton Fier with Mick Taylor on guitar while for the follow-up, the beautiful Shuffletown (with a stunning version of ‘Make The World Go Away’), he enlisted T Bone Burnett as co-producer. By the time 

During the 90s Henry’s albums became increasingly adventurous as he shrugged off the normal singer songwriter modus operandi, took control of his own production and added layers of instrumentation and heavy textures to his songs. Fuse, in 1999, which was mixed with the help of Daniel Lanois and T Bone Burnett, featured loops and samples. Scar in 2001 featured Ornette Coleman as a guest – and if ever someone wanted to make a statement about musical directions that would be one of the most emphatic ways to do it. Saxophonist/clarinettist appeared on Henry’s last solo work, the superbly ethereal Tiny Voices, in 2003. Since then he has been busy producing other people.

In 2002 Henry worked wonders with Solomon Burke on the Grammy Award winning ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’. Burke told me that he chose Henry from a shortlist of possible producers because he ordered pork chops when they had breakfast. The true story is probably a little more complex than that but Henry’s sensitivity to Burke’s musical needs can clearly be heard on the album and its choice of songs from the likes of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello. The follow-up, produced somewhat heavy-handedly by Don Was came nowhere close in either aesthetics or sales.  

Having shown his touch with Burke, Henry was a great choice to work on Betty Lavette’s I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise. By her own admission, Lavette claims that she thought she would die in obscurity and that Henry has helped her to avoid her worst fears.

Then almost out of the blue came I Believe To My Soul, one of rhe best albums of 2005 with a line-up to die for, a studio band that included Allen Toussaint and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II (currently touring with Eric Clapton) and a legendary performers such as Billy Preston, Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples and, of course, Allen Toussaint.

Little could we have foreseen when I spoke to Henry that Billy Preston would pass away. The album became most probably his final recorded appearance. The fact the Henry chose Preston might show some prescience but it also shows a lot of taste. Anyone who heard Preston’s rendition of ‘My Sweet Lord’ on the Concert For George had to wonder why he was not recording more often. When you hear him on ‘Both Ways,’ ‘As One’ and ‘That’s Enough (with Mavis Staples you realise that given the chance, Henry would have dragged another great album from the legendary keyboardist.

Full of delights, I Believe To My Soul has an outstanding performance from Irma Thomas on Bill Withers’ ‘The Same Love That Made Me Laugh,’ a wonderful reading by Mavis Staples of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Keep On Pushing’ and Ann Peebles singing Bob Dylan’s ‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’ and her own co-write ‘When The Candle Burns Low’ and sounding as good as she did at any time in her career. I said at the time of its release that Henry should immediately be employed to produce an en tire album for Irma Thomas and the subsequent release of her latest album (not produced by him but by Scott Billington) has done nothing to change that opinion.

Now we have the latest Joe Henry production -  The River In Reverse with Elvis Costello and  Allen Toussaint. It is a stunning album and one that is set to draw renewed acclaim for Toussaint, who might be able to reach an entirely new audience, and kudos for its producer who has done such a brilliant job in meshing these two immense talents.  

The album contains seven Toussaint songs (some of them classics and some of them written for this project), five co-writes with Costello and the powerful title track contributed by Elvis himself. Surprisingly, the backing band is basically The Imposters – surprising only because Steve Nieve (keyboards), Pete Thomas (drums) and Davey Faragher (bass) sound like they were born and bred in New Orleans! Have a listen to Thomas’ drumming and you will know what I mean. Anthony ‘AB’ Brown plays Fender Telecaster while The Crescent City Horns round out the sound.

Frankly, when you hear Toussaint singing and playing on ‘Who’s Gonna Help Brother?’ - the only song on which he has lead vocals - you realise that you would be happy to hear him in the forefront and Elvis taking the secondary role. However, as Henry points out, that is not the way Toussaint likes to work, he actually wanted to concede the main role to Costello. Throughout the album Toussaint’s playing – piano and Wurlitzer – is brilliant, as he decorates each song with his own signature.
At times I think I can hear Costello singing a little too earnestly – but wouldn’t you be earnest too if you were recording with one of the world’s greatest ever musicians and composers? On ‘All These Things’ Costello is a little more restrained (in the Toussaint mould) and is at his best on what is one of his vocals ever.

Still, I would never question Costello’s motives and who can begrudge him wanting to record with one of his idols. His support, along with a US tour, is bound to help many people discover Toussaint’s work. You can only thank Costello heartily for that. You have to thank him too for the title track, a justifiably angry account of what happened after Katrina.

By this time Costello and Toussaint will be on their way across America and Joe Henry will be turning his attention to Session Two of I Believe To My Soul (with an as yet unannounced guest list) Luckily, I managed to catch him between projects to talk about The River In Reverse and his recent productions.

Tell us a little about the origins of The River In Reverse.

The album originated conceptually with the idea that Elvis thought he should do an Allen songbook record. They’re very common - Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter . He wanted to make an Allen songbook record where he would sing classic songs of Allen’s. Then as the idea came into focus Elvis and Allen started writing some songs together for the project. So it’s a pretty interesting amalgam of their two worlds.

I know that Elvis is a huge fan of soul music and New Orleans music and recently he recorded an answer song to Dave Bartholomew’s ‘The Monkey.’ This project sounds very similar to the one he did with Burt Bacharach but what a fantastic musician to bring attention to in Allen Toussaint, who I guess is not only a legend in New Orleans but deserves to be a legend everywhere else, doesn’t he?

Absolutely. I’ve worked with Allen on a couple of projects in the past year and Elvis being a good friend had been a real booster for me, really encouraging of the work I was doing with Allen.

After the hurricanes that devastated the gulf coast here happened in September, Allen was in exile in New York, where Elvis lives a good deal of the time these days, and they found themselves on a couple of benefit bills together. They had recorded together years before but had not seen much of each other for many years. I think it just reinspired Elvis to acknowledge that relationship and to acknowledge how important Allen was - not just to New Orleans music but his legacy was so broad. There was not really anybody else like him walking around anymore. If you just look at his discography, the things that he wrote and played on and produced or all of the above, or the work he did as an artist himself, there’s nobody whose experience has been that broad.

Not only things that he wrote under his own name things that he wrote under other names that have become classic songs as well.

For sure. He worked for years writing under his mother’s name. 

He’s a fantastic artist and what an amazing person to work with.

Life changing 

Life changing for you?

Absolutely. My project I Believe To My Soul - which we made in June way before the hurricanes happened - Allen was the last artist to come aboard in putting that album together and yet he was without question the most significant artist on the project. He agreed to be not only a featured artist but he agreed to be a member of the band everyday for the other artists as well. So everyday I had this opportunity to work with him with intense focus when we were working on his songs and his contributions to the record.
To have him as a member of the band everyday it was so mind expanding for me, he’s such a generous individual. As an artist he couldn’t be more open, more forward thinking and more encouraging of me as a producer. I felt like I had a lot of damn nerve, he’s the producer’s producer and as we started working together, at the end of the project he mentioned to me that I was the only person to have produced him as an artist except for Jerry Wexler in ’72 or whenever that was. I said ‘I’m glad I didn’t know that going into that’ -  that would have been very daunting for me to live with. Then we worked on the New Orleans benefit record in October when Elvis asked to bring me aboard as a producer for this record. He couldn’t be more encouraging of the work I’m doing and I can’t tell you how humbling that is for me.

I’ve been very lucky to be able to see Allen on a number of occasions and once did an interview with him. You probably know how shy he is and he said to me, ‘I really don’t know what to say.’

Then you understand if you’ve spent anytime in his company when I say he’s almost like a Zen master to me. He’s so dignified, he’s so quite and yet he’s absolutely so clear and straight. You can ask him anything. He’s not polite for the sake of being polite - that’s his sensibility - but he’s deadly serious about what you’re doing. He’ll be completely respectful and yet he always finds a way to very succinctly and politely make his opinions known. After I’d spent some time with him, I always knew where I was with him, I knew how to read his body language and I knew when he was really happy and when he thought we were still searching for it.

He does have a great sense of humour, very quite and dry and self-effacing and he’ll surprise you at times by being fairly gregarious. I just think the world of him and I think my chance to work on several projects with him this last year is as important as anything I’ve ever done - as significant to me as anything I’ve ever done before.

It ]New Orleans] has undergone the terrible devastation from the hurricane. What studio did you use and how did you set the whole thing up?

It was devastating. We spent eight days recording in Los Angeles and then we went down to New Orleans for the last five and we worked in the Ninth Ward at Piety Street - one of two studios that were up and running. They were about two blocks away from the rising water, so they were never submerged even though a lot of the Ninth Ward was devastated.

So we didn’t just go down there to soak up local flavour - I think that would have been very disrespectful at this moment in history, to go down there as sightseers. But because Allen is a lifer down there and never plans to leave this city and plans to go back as soon as he has a place to live there again, it was really important to him that if there was anyway to do part of the project there we should, rather then just pay lip service to the idea.

If we’re actually doing a project that can support it then we should take the project down there and put some money back into the economy and put some focus back on the community. So there we were. 

I’m amazed that you got Allen out of New Orleans in the first place because I think that one of the impediments to his solo career  - although he did record in LA back in the 70s - was the fact that he just wanted to stay in New Orleans like so many other people.

Well, Allen and I had dinner in New York this past October and it was rare moment. We just spent a couple of hours, just the two of us over a meal and together. We’d been working and he mentioned to me that he imagined that he would never leave New Orleans again. I said, ‘I’m really surprised that you came back to work with me back in June’ and he said, ‘I was surprised by that too.’ I said, ‘Why did you come?’ And he said, ‘Well you asked me so nicely.’

He didn’t know who I was when I rang. The project [I Believe To My Soul] was due to start in ten days and here I am out of the blue - someone he’s never heard of - and I’m proposing this sprawling idea of a project. I’m saying it starts in ten days and I want you to come out here for a week and I’m going produce you doing your own music and you’re going to be a band member for the rest of it and he said, ‘I saw that letter and I thought about it for two seconds and I heard myself say yes.’

The other thing about Allen’s recording career is that he has seldom recorded solo albums. Also he’s not the best person to produce himself these days. I don’t know what you think about that.

I’ve heard a lot of people make that comment - a great artist who’s also a producer shouldn’t necessarily produce themselves. I don’t know at what point Allen would have made another record on his own. He told me he had never had any interest in being a solo artist. He’s very comfortable.

If you look at the work he did with Lee Dorsey, that’s the way he enjoys working. He’s the driving wheel: he’s playing, he’s singing backup vocals and he doesn’t have to be the focal point and he’s very comfortable with that.

So I had just been talking to him about doing a full solo record with him after we had done  I Believe To My Soul and then the idea of doing a record with Elvis started to look like a real possibility and that was much more in keeping with how he sees himself. He was willing to do a solo record with me as an artist but I realised that the scenario that involved Elvis - that his songs were featured, he was featured, he was writing the arrangements and yet Elvis was standing there in the spotlight as the voice and the persona - that that’s really how he’s most comfortable working.

You mentioned Lee Dorsey and we’ve recently had a couple of Lee Dorsey albums re-released - the Allen Toussaint produced Yes We Can and Night People. I think that Allen wrote nearly all the songs on both those albums and produced them and played on them.

Yes, if you listen you can hear his backing vocals stacked all over the place. Once you tune into his voice he’s all over the place and especially the Yes We Can record. Obviously, when I was planning to work with Allen I revisited a lot of music from his history but when I came of age I was really into The Band and for so many years I thought that that was their invention, that funky soulful take on American roots music. Then I heard Lee Dorsey do his Yes We Can record and that was literally, and I’m sure consciously, the blueprint for what The Band was doing. I had realised the significance and I started to put the pieces together. For their live album they called Allen Toussaint to write horn charts for Rock Of Age because that’s what they were referencing all the time. As a young person I didn’t understand how much that music mattered to The Band, to Ry Cooder, to Little Feat and all those people. I hear it as a grown up now and it was a bit more of an education and I realise that was an incredibly influential statement to have made.

I was really thrilled to hear Billy Preston on the album. It must have been fantastic to get him and also to have him as part of the band.

It was amazing. He was with us a very short time but it was electrifying. First of all you have to understand that this all happened in a week and everyday the door opened up and somebody else for whom I have boundless love and admiration for walks in the door and I had to learn to work and take the wheel and be the driver and be respectful and not let my love and awe for these artists get in the way because they’ve got no use for that.

So for someone like Billy to walk in, you quickly have to remind yourself, he was playing with Mahalia Jackson when he was 10 and he was touring with Little Richard when he was 15 and he played with Ray Charles and he played with the Beatles. You have to stop yourself and go that’s not what we’re doing today, we’re here to record some songs with Billy and let’s find a way for them to stand up. 

Did you choose the songs?

He sent a few new songs and I just picked the things that I heard that sounded like they would fit the sensibility of the project. It was important that the project have a cohesive feel because it didn’t feel like a compilation. I called Billy Preston and he sent me a track, I called Irma and she sent me a track. I wanted the whole thing to have the feel of an album even though there were all these different elements coming together. So I suggested we do a couple of songs from the ones he sent me that would sound of the piece, like a piece of this whole.

NEXT MONTH: Joe Henry on his approach to production, Betty Lavette and his own recording career.

A JOE HENRY DISCOGRAPHY

Talk Of Heaven (1986)

Murder Of Crows  (1989)

Shuffletown (1990)

Short Man’s Room (1992)

Kindness Of The World (1993)

Trampoline (1996)

Fuse (1998)

Scar (2001)

Tiny Voices (2003)