About Joe Henry's Reverie
Joe Henry's new album 'Reverie' is an all-acoustic production, though also a raw and raucous and messy affair. As Henry explains, "I knew it should be stripped and lean but not demur, sonically speaking; in black and white, but not without red blood in its veins."
The record came to fruition when Henry and his fellow musicians convened in Henry's basement studio for three days of exploration. Next the great guitarist Marc Ribot joined with "his particular and wiry racquet" for a few songs. There was some additional lost-world underscoring from singer Jean McClain, and a brief soliloquy given air and a smear of lipstick by Patrick Warren's pump organ. The final touch occured when the song "Piano Furnace" was sent to Dublin so singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, for whom Henry had just produced an album, could illuminate a few words with her indelible spirit.