Pitchfork: Joe Henry Gathers Soul Legends for Katrina Benefit CD

Joe Henry Gathers Soul Legends for Katrina Benefit CD

Crotchety-lit stick figure/Tin Pan Alley country cousin Joe Henry doesn't make enough of his own records anymore. The man Madonna is proud to call brother-in-law (what does she buy him for the holidays?) has been leading a bountifully busy double life as a producer lately. Like Rick Rubin's work with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, Henry has been providing his elders with ambient starkness and tips on the solid songcraft that made them legends in the first place.

In the grand tradition of his Grammy-gathering CD with Solomon Burke (2002's Don't Give Up On Me) and Bettye LaVette's diabolical I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (one of 2005's best-- hands down, lighters up), comes I Believe To My Soul, Henry's tribute to soul's oldest school, featuring some of its finest living teachers hitting the books. He gathered the legends at the famous Capitol Studios in Hollywood this past June, and made magic happen.

Henry told Pitchfork, "After producing Solomon, I recognized there was a desire among listeners-- myself included-- for a contemporary version of authentic soul music. And this record's final roster is, to my mind, a perfect blend of the different regions that fostered the music." He's talking about Ann Peebles from Memphis, Mavis Staples from Chicago, Texan-born Billy Preston, and Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint from New Orleans.

The latter pair, two of the true dirty South's finest practitioners, were momentarily listed as lost during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Devastated by the flood's impact upon his friends as well as the political landscape ("our collective failure as a nation to have compassion reeked much more devastation than did the storm"), Henry joined forces with Work Song, Rhino Records, and Starbucks' Hear Music to make the album a benefit for hurricane victims.

"New Orleans-- it's exotic the way Paris, Florence and Buenos Aires are exotic, yet there it sits right there in the southern United States," Henry said. "The music that has come out of there-- going back to Kid Ory and King Oliver and Buddy Bolden and then Louis Armstrong-- has been wholly singular, influencing everything that followed. And all from what feels like, when you're there, a small village. It's an anomaly in American culture-- like the fresh-water well in the middle of a town: small, mysterious and completely essential to life as we know it."

Flood or not, Rita, Katrina or not, monies raised or not, Henry and I Believe To My Soul do one truly important thing: Make these legends sound better than they ever have.

Tracklist:

01 Mavis Staples: You Must Have That True Religion
02 Billy Preston: Both Ways--
03 Ann Peebles: Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
04 Irma Thomas: The Same Love That Made Me Laugh
05 Allen Toussaint: Mi Amour
06 Mavis Staples: Keep on Pushing
07 Billy Preston: As One
08 Irma Thomas: Loving Arms
09 Allen Toussaint: River Boat
10 Mavis Staples and Billy Preston: That's Enough
11 Allen Toussaint: Turvalon
12 Ann Peebles: When the Candle Burns Low
13 Allen Toussaint: We Are One