Joe Henry

From Michigan to Garfield House

Joseph Lee Henry was born on December 2, 1960 in Charlotte, North Carolina, spent his first years in Charlotte and Atlanta per The Believer, and grew up in Oakland Township, Michigan, attending Rochester Adams High School and the University of Michigan. He moved to Brooklyn in 1985 and played local venues; Talk of Heaven (1986) led to a deal with A&M. Murder of Crows (1989) has Mick Taylor on lead guitar, Shuffletown (1990) was produced by T Bone Burnett, and he followed with Short Man's Room (1992), Kindness of the World (1993) with members of the Jayhawks, the EP Fireman's Wedding (1994), Trampoline (1996) and Fuse (1999).

Scar (May 15, 2001, Mammoth) was recorded in September 2000 at The Sound Factory in Hollywood and Sear Sound in New York with a band that included Brad Mehldau, Marc Ribot, Me'Shell Ndegeocello and Brian Blade. Henry told The Believer he assembled the band on about $150,000 and expected to be dropped by his label, which he was. He moved to ANTI- for Tiny Voices (2003), then made Civilians (2007), Blood from Stars (2009), Reverie (2011), Invisible Hour (2014), Thrum (2017), The Gospel According to Water (2019) and All the Eye Can See (2022). The live Shine a Light (2016) is with Billy Bragg, and he co-wrote the Richard Pryor biography Furious Cool (2013) with his brother David.

As a producer he made Solomon Burke's Don't Give Up on Me (2002), which won a Grammy, Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm (2005), Bettye LaVette's I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005), Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint's The River in Reverse (2006), Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi (2009), Hugh Laurie's Let Them Talk (2011), Bonnie Raitt's Slipstream (2012, co-produced), Joan Baez's Whistle Down the Wind (2018) and Rhiannon Giddens's There Is No Other (2019). He opened a home studio, the Garfield House, in 2006, and moved out in early 2015. The Americana Music Honors and Awards gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award on September 10, 2025. Wikipedia calls him a modest-selling critic's darling.