Americana Fest Award show

AmericanaFest has confirmed the artists who will perform during the awardshow.

Joe Henry & Billy Bragg are among them. They are nominated as 'duo of the year' for their project 'Shine a Light'.

Lauralee (with/for Andrew Combs)

A little while ago Joe Co-Wrote the song 'Lauralee' with (and for) Andrew Combs.

And with that : a new segment of this virtual universe is made. A page with the songs Joe wrote (or helped to write) for others.




I used to love to watch the wind 

Fall and lift again 

Your flowing hair

All I could do was stare 

That whispering quiet sound 

When it all came tumbling down 

Your skin all bare 

It just isn't fair 

Cause I still feel you in the air somehow 

Just like you were here, but you're not here now 

Lauralee 

A word with wings 

That's all the wind sings

Lauralee 

The bed that you once shared with me 

Lies there like my enemy 

Such a clever thief 

To steal my sleep 

Open windows, open eyes 

But the wind don't sing no lullabyes 

All I hear Is a voice, so clear 

Asking where in the world did you go 

After all my questions, 

I still don't know 

Kenneth Pattengale's History with Joe

I was incredibly influenced by Joe's work as a producer. It explains a really special time in musical history, one where we should be verry proud of. It doesn't feel as distant in the past as the other things that have that affect on me. That was happening 15 years ago.

(Kenneth Pattengale)



Steve Dawson had Kenneth Pattengale as a guest for his Extraordinary podcast Musicmakers and soulshakers. A Podcast that already featured several JH Aficionado, including Joe Himself and Ryan Freeland.

In this episode (n°45) it was half of the Milk Carton Kids, Kenneth Pattengale's turn.

Listen to his musical path. And at the end of the almost 2 hour episode he explains how his relationship with Joe started and grew.  (starts at 1:34:30)
Listen f.e. to an excerpt of his 2009 duet with Joe entitled Big Time, but also maybe his biggest Horror story. ;-)

Thrum Details

Amazon has Thrum online as a pre-sale.

They list the releasedate on October 27, 2017.
We also get the tracklist.

1. Climb
2. Believer
3. Dark Is Light Enough
4. Blood of the Forgotten Song
5. World of This Room
6. The Glorious Dead
7. Hungry
8. Quicksilver
9. River Floor
10. Now and Never
11. Keep Us in Song

The People Sing!

On september 12th the event 'The People Sing!' will take place.

An event To bring to life extraordinary history of ordinary people engaged in struggles for freedom and justice.

It's a gathering that takes place on openingnight of Americanafest 2017. Presented by AmericanaFest, War Memorial Auditorium and Voices of a Peoples History of the U.S. 

 

Invited by Allison Moorer, Joe is 1 of the participating artists next to Hayes Carll, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Alice Randall, Teddy Thompson, Otis Taylor, Elizabeth Cook, Shelby Lynne, Blind Boys of Alabama, Rhiannon Giddens, Billy Bragg, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and more. 

 

GET YOUR TICKETS !

 

It's not the first time Joe performed for 'Voices of a Peoples History'. In 2014 he performed on their 10th anniversary celebration.

And don't forget that Joe and Billy Bragg are nominated for duo of the year.

 

 

This summer I myself became verry emotional concerning 'ordinary people engaged in struggles for freedom and justice.'

 

I read Flemish Author Stefan Hertmans book 'Oorlog en Terpentijn' (War and Turpetine). Stefan Hertmans his Grandfather was a soldier in the frontlines during the first World War. He wrote down his lifestory. 

I've been taught about the WW's in school, I've seen movies, documentaries, read books, but it's this one that had the biggest confrontation of what it must have been to live in a war. It's a stunning, shocking and heartbreaking book, about how a beautiful person's life has been overthrown by this war.

 

For our Familyholiday we went to flanders fields this year. Everything that I absorbed  on my Holiday lead me to write the following.

Out there in these Flanders Fields….

A generation of young individuals. These men and women, these heroes… Their lives chattered by mightier men, more powerful men who wanted more of the same thing.

A generation of beautiful people, forced to live in a disgusting world….

Everyone has heroes, people you look up to, and dream of grasping just a little spark of their talent. But the people who fought in the great war are part of a higher Heroism. A Heroism of which you do not want to have the littlest part of. I’m pretty sure, that even most of these soldiers in the frontline wished they had a normal youth. Wished they didn’t have to carry afterwards all these ghosts from the past with them.
4 Years in Hell. Without a choice… Wait, … No, they had choices: refuse to fight, and be executed as a traitor, fight and die, or fight and by strange ways of how things go: survive… physically.
4 Years forced in the frontline, by men, behind comfortable desks, who maybe only have seen the trenches when the battle was already done. Trenches they lived in, … Trenches they dug themselves lying down... Because standing up, was an open invitation for a bullet. Day after day after day.... Living between their own human dirt and the rats. No warm food, because the smoke of heating it, would give them away. Only the constant fear, that it could be over the next minute. Day after day after month, after year…

Out there in these Flanders Fields.

With the biggest respect,
Stefan.

 

 

Opening act for Milk Carton Kids concert

Joe will be the openingact for the first show of the new 'Milk Carton Kids' tour.

October 28, Franklin TN, Franklin Theatre.




For tickets and info visit the MCK website.

Joe's upcoming album 'Thrum' is anounced for somewhere in those months, so perhaps there's a chance you will be hearing some of these new songs...

Enjoy!

Amy Helm

Joe is producing Amy Helm's new album.

We love @amyhelmmusic - she's making a new record - produced by @joehenrymusic - with some wonderful artists - #jennifercondos, @tylerchester, #jaybellerose, @rjfreeland, #adamminkoff, @doylebramhall2 - we were honoured to contribute some harmonies #studiob

Een bericht gedeeld door Birds of Chicago (@birdsofchicago) op 17 Aug 2017 om 8:45 PDT

Behind the desk there is (off course) Ryan Freeland and besides Joe's regular musicians, Birds of Chicago have also contributed to it.

Now Listen to that voice ! (and try to sit still)

Lizz Wright's rendition of Barley

New single of Lizz Wright's upcoming album 'Grace'.

Barley
Produced by Joe Henry
Written by Allison Russell
Originally recorded by Birds of Chicago, (available on the album 'Real Midnight' which was also produced by Joe).

Need I say more....

As Wright herself writes, “‘We sing to remember home and to make ourselves at home in any place.’ These are the words of my dear friend Toshi Reagon. In ‘Barley,’ JT Nero and Allison Russell (from Birds of Chicago) churn a wise and faith-filled sentiment to build a place to rest assured of my sense of belonging and peace. I’m excited to see young writers using this old blues style of repetition in their work. Feels so good.” (Paste Magazine)

Grace will be released on September 15, 2017.
pre-order it today!