One typical way to start an interview feature is to sprinkle in a bit of bio on the subject. Joe Henry, however, is one of the most eloquently self-descriptive artists out there, so why not just let him do it?

"As I appear before you, I have just turned 46 years old. I remain 5’9” tall and hold steady at 146 pounds. My hair is wavy, but only at my express direction. My eyes are brown or green depending on the light, and I sometimes appear to have a slight limp, if remembering a fall I took in London two years ago October. I am Sagittarian; a Southerner by birth, and Midwestern by transplant; a loyal spouse and the well-meaning but jittery father of two."

So begin the liner notes to his excellent new disc, Civilians, his second for Anti Records and his 10th overall (hear the title track here). He is best known of late at the Grammy-winning producer of comeback albums from the likes of Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette and others, as well as his work with artists like Aimee Mann, Ani DiFranco and Teddy Thompson. It is as a solo artist, however, that he truly shines.

Henry has no steady band. Instead, he gathers musicians for each project and records the resulting performances. That has lead to inspired projects that have brought together folks like Brad Mehldau, Marc Ribot, Brian Blades and, most famously on his album Scar, Ornette Coleman. For this latest album, he brought together Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, Patrick Warren and, on two songs, famed Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks, among others. The group recorded the disc in just five days, four in early January and one in late February of this year. The result is a disc that shakes off the torpor of his last, Tiny Voices, to let in a little air and light. The disc feels no less weighty than its predecessors, yet there is a lightness to the presentation that fits well.

Henry started as a typical singer-songwriter, and found a moderate measure of success when his rootsy albums Short Man's Room and Kindness of the World coincided with the brief ascent of the alt-country movement. With his sixth album, Tramopline, Henry began to push at the boundaries of his music, adding drum machines and other percussion elements, experimenting with instrumentation and allowing for silence and mood to carry as much of the song's spirit as the music and words. Each subsequent disc found Henry pushing further while at the same time establishing a signature sound. His discs may not sound alike, but they all sound like him. With Civilians, it's no stretch when Henry calls it "a culmination of everything I've done" in his self-penned "Idiot's Guide to Joe Henry" found on the excellent Jefito blog. He also writes there about Civilians that he's "never made a record with less regard for what anyone else would think of it." He needn't worry -- it's a stunner.

Henry took time out from a busy promotional schedule (check out his great performance at KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic) to answer a few questions about his process, his early work and the way he balances his many roles.

TIRBD: This disc feels less claustrophobic than Tiny Voices; that sound fit those songs well, whereas this airier delivery feels right for this new batch of songs. Did you set out wanting to change things like that, or did the songs that you had come up with require that shift?

JH: Both, actually. Given that Scar and Tiny Voices were both wide-screen movies, if you will, it didn't feel like a retreat to strip things back, but like the inevitable way forward. And once I felt myself challenged to take that direction, I found the songs that followed were informed by that direction. The stories on Civilians are bigger in some ways than on the previous two records, but the characters are smaller; thus the heightened sense of drama comes from starkness rather than the sonic layers. If Tiny Voices was a Bunuel movie, as I suggested at the time, Civilians is more like "To Have and Have Not:" a few lonely but determined characters, trying to keep their balance between the oceanic winds of love and regret, and against the threat of a political undertow.

Do you seek out musicians to capture a specific sound for you from project to project, or do the musicians you assemble organically determine the sound that results? You clearly get something different from an Ornette Coleman, who can't help but dominate whatever he is a part of, as opposed to say, Greg Leisz, who's playing seems to be more about texture and color.

I rarely just imagine a sound in a vacuum and then try to think who could give it to me. I imagine a musical sensibility... imagine who I want to be in the room; knowing that, through the process, we will uncover a way to make the songs into living things. Greg and Ornette are very different players, to be sure; but they both showed themselves to me to be boldly and totally in service to the songs at hand, which is what I am always looking for.

You mentioned in the comments on your Jefito "Idiot's Guide to Joe Henry" post that you realized Miles Davis's albums sounded like what he was wearing at the time, and that you make sure to dress the part on your own projects. So, what were you wearing during the recording of Civilians?

Stove-pipe jeans and motorcycle boots – though the latter of a particular Italian manufacture. If I wore a tie, it was loosened. Equally important, though: I served excellent espresso throughout the day, opened a cabernet or red zinfandel every evening at 5:15 and favored rye over bourbon after dinner.

You have spent a lot of time producing other artists. Are there things you've picked up on in these sessions that have led to you changing the way you look at your own work when it comes to recording and performance?

Producing other artists hasn't changed the way I work, but has validated my long-standing methods, since I’ve now seen them work in many different circumstances. that method consists of hiring only open-hearted musicians with whom I’d also like to share a meal or see a ballgame; and to work very quickly, which not only encourages but insists on commitment to ideas. Additionally, I always begin with a performance, no matter how it might be mutated down the road. I am no purest and regard no "take" with any abundance of reverence; but I think a song needs the dramatic arc of a performance as its foundation.

You've said of your older, rootsier albums – Short Man's Room and Kindness of the World, specifically – that they were things you hear as "where I was falling short and feeling trapped by a sonic dress code." You concede, however, that the songs were good. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing you perform, so I wonder, do you revisit those songs today, applying your new "sonic dress" to them, and if so, do you find new things within them?

I rarely go back that far in my catalogue anymore in performance, even though I like many of the songs on those early records. I’m just more excited by what I’m doing now I guess -and by "now" I mean post-Trampoline. I do occasionally grab a song from before that period to reimagine for a live show; but if I do, I don't play the old recording for current bandmates. I just teach them the song then see where it goes. The songs of the more recent records have an openness in their structure that makes them more fun to play, somehow; and hold up well to a verity of interpretations.

Assuming you didn't really see Willie Mays in a Home Depot (I would be delighted to be wrong, of course), how do images like that work their way into your songs? Do you have a thought like "I wonder what it would be like to run into someone like Willie Mays at a Home Depot," and then somehow spin that into a subtle protest song, or do you start writing the song and then think, "It would be interesting to stick Willie Mays in here"?

No, I didn't have the idea for the song and then decide Willie Mays was a clever image to propel it forward. Rather, I heard the first line in my head verbatim, with no idea to what it referred or where it might go. In other words, I didn't impose Willie Mays upon the song; he arrived to tell me about the song. And that is frequently how songs happen. Fellini once said, "I create a character then find out what he has to tell me," and that makes sense to me. I don't write to express an idea I’ve already had. I find out what I’m writing about by Writing; and once there is a rough version of something down, with enough of an identity that I can step away from it without it disappearing, I find I can start the refining process.

You now seem to have found a way to balance your work as a solo artist, your work with films and your work as a producer. Is it a peaceful coexistence? Do these inform one another? Have you contemplated adding to the mix by more fully indulging your clear talents for writing?

The more I work, the less distinction I see between the different aspects of what I do. whether writing a song, singing one into a microphone, or producing someone else who is doing those thing... it all feels like the same pursuit: to make something meaningful come out of a pair of speakers. Even one speaker, sometimes.

Labels: Monday Interview, music