Joe Henry @ Corner Hotel,Melbourne (23/01/09)

Sun 25th Jan, 2009 in Gig Reviews

Joe Henry is best known for his production work for artist’s such as Ani Difranco, the award winning Solomon Burke’s album Don’t Give Up On Me which resurrected the soul legends career, but his set at the Corner consisted of his solo material from his lustrous career.

Joe was accompanied by David Pitch who played the double bass while Joe swapped between guitars and piano throughout the night, Joe’s songs paint detailed pictures of tortured woman and men in broken relationships and the heartaches associated with these people.

Joe’s song writing style is reminicient of Tom Waits in the way they both write about the broken hearts of society, but the difference between the two is that while Waits writes with a sardonic black wit, Henry’s songs are lot more serious and a bit more heartfelt. The song Trampoline was the highlight of the night is a perfect example of his exemplary song writing, it’s a beautiful song about lost love and reflecting about the changes you should have made to keep the love of your life.

Joe had this air of coolness to him and he didn’t even have to try to impress the crowd, this is a sign of a true artist who plays for himself without a sign of arrogance. He told a story about a song of his called Stop which he co-wrote with Madonna (his sister in-law) in which his version he turned into a down-tempo tango and Madonna’s version ended up being a top 5 hit. Even though Joe works with all these amazing performers and is constantly getting accolades for his work he doesn’t seem affected at all, if anything it has made him more humble, I think personally think he just a big music geek who just likes playing music for the sake of playing music pure and simple.

It was quite a gap between gigs for Joe, last time he played in Australia was about 15 years ago, and lets hope the wait isn’t so long next time.