Joe Henry announces new LP ft Allison Russell, Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, more (stream a track)

Singer-songwriter Joe Henry has announced his 16th album, All The Eye Can See, which will be released January 27 via earMUSIC. Made during the pandemic, the album has Joe primarily backed by his son, Levon Henry, on saxophone and clarinet, David Piltch on bass, Patrick Warren and Keefus Cianci on keys, and John Smith on acoustic guitar. Joe also got a bunch of his friends to play on it, including Daniel Lanois, Allison Russell & JT Nero, Madison Cunningham, Rose Cousins, Francesco Turrisi, The Milk Carton Kids, Tyler Chester, Tony Trundle, Floriane Blancke, Lisa Hannigan, Marc Ribot, John Smith and Bill Frisell.

Says Joe, “As for the songs themselves, I hear them in part as springing out of our shared and traumatic experiences of the recent past, sure, as well as our present-day responses to them; but if I am honest, I know that I have never allowed myself to write and release songs as personal as these now feel to me.”

You can listen to All the Eye Can See‘s title track now. “This one exemplifies much about the whole’s overall process, form, and intentions,” says Joe. “Like several other of its companion pieces, I wrote this song in total on a single and solitary early morning walk along the Arroyo in Pasadena, CA: nearly hypnotizing myself as it unspooled, and as I sang it over and over on behalf of remembering it. Once home, I found the nearest guitar and learned to support what I’d just been singing, then quickly recorded my own performance in two or three raw takes before sending it first across town to my dear brother Patrick Warren ––who heard in it its fractured and bruised orchestral possibilities that I was determined to maintain, even as new elements were offered and integrated. And though this song is folksy in its articulations, I know that structurally I am leaning into the architecture of so-called American Songbook Standards…aiming less for “timely” in favour of something timeless; something out of time. And note: when Levon’s tenor saxophone enters against the strings, I feel now as then that I could almost dispense with the lyric completely, so fully does he carry the water of his father’s most ardent determinations.”

Watch the lyric video, and check out the album art and tracklist, below.

All The Eye Can See:
1. Prelude To Song
2. Song That I Know
3. Mission
4. Yearling
5. Near To The Ground
6. Karen Dalton
7. O Beloved
8. God Laughs
9. Kitchen Door
10. Small Wonder
11. All The Eye Can See
12. Pass Through Me Now
13. Prologue To Song
14. Red Letter Day