Joe Henry - Civilians
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CD Details
Artist: Joe HenryEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2007-09-11
Music Label: Anti
Soundtracks:
- Civilians
- Parker's Mood
- Civil War
- Time Is a Lion
- You Can't Fail Me Now
- Scare Me To Death
- Our Song
- Wave
- Love Is Enough
- I Will Write My Book
- Shut Me Up
- God Only Knows
Music reviews of Civilians
Music Review: Joe Henry Is a Lion
Rating: 5 Stars
I'll throw two more cents in among all the beautiful words people have written on the subject of Civilians. In my view, Tiny Voices might have made a pinnacle of a great career, but somehow Joe Henry keeps getting better, stronger, just keeps growing, as a storyteller, as a lyricist, an instrumentalist. By god, I think he is even breaking new ground in the art of production: who can make something so beautiful and complex sound so natural? This guy is an artist, seriously, of the entire process, from pen-to-paper to CD.
There are a lot of comparisons to Tom Waits, but I don't see such an active similarity. Sure, they both spin a mean yarn, and they are both moving forward as artists. But Waits occupies a unique place in music and art, and Henry is moving his own direction, distilling a whole genre to meet his great strength -- the songwriting -- the sensitivity, uniqueness, humor, sadness, all sparely mixed up like a concentrate of life itself:
I saw Willie Mays
At a Scottsdale Home Depot
Looking at garage-door springs
At the far end of the 14th row
...
The sun is unforgiving and there's
nobody would choose this town
but we've squandered so much of our goodwill
that there's nowhere else would have us now
we push in line at the picture show
for cool air and a chance to see:
A vision of ourselves portrayed as
younger and braver, and humble and free
This was our country
This was our song...
It's heartbreaking, all of it. "Sing it like a song," goes the title track, which along with "Time Is a Lion" are some of the most purely fun songs to sing to I've heard in a long time. The fun, the sadness; something about the relentless picking-it-up-and-laying-it-down gives Henry the authority to speculate on the concept of song itself. Through all the speculation and storytelling, the turns of phrase, and those weird Joe Henry images, he's shining new light on what it means to sing in an age that, with every passing year, more and more resembles the worlds he's been creating all along.
He's holding up a mirror, and I am both overjoyed and horrified by what's in it. I want to cry and dance. That's art.
Description of Civilians
Since the release of 2003's acclaimed "Tiny Voices", singer/songwriter Henry has appeared mainly as a producer, working on career defining releases by Aimee Mann, Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke, and most recently as producer and co-writer of "Strange Weirdos" (with Loudon Wainwright), the soundtrack to the film "Knocked Up". Working with this generation's finest songwriters inspired Joe to his strongest set of songs on "Civilians"; songs of a new warmth and directness and a bold sense of melody that rides atop the cutting edge arrangements he's become known for. Features legendary pianist/songwriter Van Dyke Parks (everyone from the Beach Boys to U2) and jazz guitar pioneer Bill Frisell (Elvis Costello, Norah Jones).Though Joe Henry has recently been busier as a producer (for the Grammy-winning Solomon Burke, a well-received collaboration between Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, and Henry's own collaboration with Loudon Wainwright III), his first recording of his own material in four years reminds that he has few peers among contemporary singer-songwriters. On previous releases, his adventurousness has pulled his music in all sorts of different directions, but focus and cohesion characterize this song cycle--one that suggests that all politics aren't merely local, but deeply personal. From the centerpiece of "Our Song," where Willie Mays laments what the country has become and remembers what it was, Henry crafts a literate, typically inspired song cycle. Stately waltzes, chamber atmospherics, and jazz instrumentation contribute to the cinematic scope of the music, with guitarists Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz and keyboardists Van Dyke Parks and Patrick Warren providing support that leaves the songs plenty of room to breathe. On "You Can't Fail Me Now" and "God Only Knows," it's hard to distinguish poetry from prayer. --Don McLeese
Joe Henry's latest is arguably his finest. This is not meant to undermine the allure and strengths of his previous works--rather, it speaks to artistry at work, that the newest is his best thus far. His work as a producer (for, among others, Allen Toussaint & Elvis Costello, Aimee Mann, Bettye LaVette, and Solomon Burke) has clearly informed what flows forth here. Having assembled a stellar band, he rose to the occasion with this set of emotionally complex songs, rich in subtleties. Deftly drawn characters inhabit many of the lyrics, with the centerpiece being "Our Song," wherein he offers up a viable fiction: encountering baseball hero Willie Mays shopping in an Arizona Home Depot. The melancholy of time passing and expectations being shuffled about makes this a riveting and moving number. Sociopolitical circumstances inform much of the album, but never as sloganeering, always human-scaled, with warmth and a beating heart. --David Greenberger
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