Invisible Hour (Bonustracks) Joe Henry

• 1 Sparrow 07:23
• 2 Grave Angels 05:30
• 3 Sign 08:57
• 4 Invisible Hour 04:01
• 5 Swayed 05:17
• 6 Plainspeak 05:25
• 7 Lead Me On 04:30
• 8 Alice 02:45
• 9 Every Sorrow 04:57
• 10 Water Between Us 05:01
• 11 Slide 06:29
• 12 The Glorious Dead (Alternate Version Demo) 04:22
• 13 News from the Great Wide World (Demo) 04:46
• 14 Slide (Alternate Version Demo) 03:59
• Total Runtime 01:13:22

Info for Invisible Hour (Bonustracks)

Produced by Henry himself, the album features numerous guest artists including The Milk Carton Kids and Lisa Hannigan, who co-wrote the album's title track with Henry and best-selling author Colum McCann. Recorded over four days in July 2013 at Henry's own Pasadena studio, The Garfield House, Henry handles vocals and acoustic guitar. Greg Leisz plays guitar and other stringed instruments. John Smith performs on guitar, mandola and background vocals; Jay Bellerose on drums; Jennifer Condos on electric bass; and his son Levon Henry plays various woodwind instruments. In addition, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan of the Milk Carton Kids contribute background vocals throughout the album, while Lisa Hannigan provides vocals on ‘Lead Me On’.

This re-release of 2024 includes three special bonus tracks: two alternative demo versions of ‘Slide’ and ‘The Glorious Dead’, originally released on Henry's 2017 album ‘Thrum’, as well as the previously unheard demo ‘News From the Great Wide World’.

“With this new reissue series, I find there’s something unexpectedly compelling to me about revisiting this particular trio of albums as, together, these volumes represent my sort of 'coming-of-age’ as a record maker, in that I stopped observing any border between a song's composition and its studio articulation. It all became a single impulse for me...conjured into fruition right there in my basement.”, Henry reflects on the reissue series. (Joe Henry

"In his liner essay for the album Invisible Hour, Joe Henry writes, "As much as anything, perhaps these are all songs about marriage -- marriage as a verb, not a noun." Henry's words certainly point to the core of the album's themes; Invisible Hour is a striking, emotionally powerful set of songs that deal with the nuts and bolts of love, for better and for worse, and this music speaks with an intimacy and poetic force that use the beauty of Henry's wordplay and vocals not as empty artifice, but as a tool that makes these tales cut even deeper than they might otherwise. While the songs on Invisible Hour are very much about love, the tone of this album is neither romantic or cynical, but honest, compassionate, and contemplative; these lyrics deal with the power and the fragility of the human heart, and for each song like "Sparrow," in which the love of another is a gift that sustains, there's another one like the epic-scale "Sign," a nine-minute picaresque in which a man searches the world for the feeling he briefly knew as a heartsick schoolboy. These songs are never simple, but they're not needlessly complicated, either, and Henry's vocals are strong and eloquent against the dynamic, carefully detailed acoustic backdrops of his studio band, which includes drummer Jay Bellerose, Greg Leisz on guitar and mandolin, and Levon Henry on reeds. Joe Henry has always had a knack for excellent wordplay and knows how to find great sounds and conjure great performances in the studio, but Invisible Hour is most impressive in how spare it is; there is almost nothing here that doesn't help set the mood or move the songs forward, and in this elegant approach, Henry finds something remarkable. Invisible Hour is a beautiful, haunting collection of songs that only Joe Henry could create, and whether you're familiar with his work of not, you're likely to find something that will impress you on this album." (Mark Deming)

"Invisible Hour has to be one of the most honest and beautiful records to be released in 2014! Joe Henry has been around for a long time now, as evidenced by this album being his 13th studio recording. However, in his own words, he feels that this album "stands as a defining moment for me personally and as an artist". Like alot of his previous albums, as well as his many productions, the sound of the album is really warm and sounds like he's almost in the same room as you. There's also an honesty to his lyrics that you don't find on many other current recordings. Songs such as Sparrow, Grave Angels and in particular the final tune, Slide show this in spades. The playing on the album is really beautiful too and there's also appearances from Lisa Hannigan and The Milk Carton Kids. For fans of really good songwriting and thoughtful lyrics, this album is for you!" (Crispi - The Breakfast Spread)

Joe Henry, vocals, guitars
Jay Bellerose, drums, percussion
Jennifer Condos, electric bass
Levon Henry, clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones
Greg Leisz, acoustic guitars, mandola, mandocello, Weissenborn
David Piltch, upright bass ("Invisible Hour", "Lead Me On")
John Smith, acoustic guitar, mandola ("Slide"), backing vocals
Lisa Hannigan, vocals ("Lead Me On")
The Milk Carton Kids:
Kenneth Pattengale, backing vocals
Joey Ryan, backing vocals

Recorded at The Garfield House, South Pasadena, CA, July 24, 25, 26 and 31, 2013.
Mixed and mastered at Stampede Origin, Culver City, CA.

Digitally remastered

Joe Henry
In a career spanning more than 25 years, Joe Henry has left an indelible and unique imprint on American popular music. As a songwriter and artist, Henry is celebrated for his exploration of the human experience. A hyper-literate storyteller, by turns dark, devastating, and hopeful, he draws an author’s eye for the overlooked detail across a broad swath of American musical styles — rock, jazz and blues — rendering genre modifiers useless.

Henry has collaborated with many notable American artists on his own body of work, from T Bone Burnett, Daniel Lanois, and Van Dyke Parks on one side of the spectrum, to Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, and Bill Frisell on the other. A three-time-Grammy-winning producer, Henry has made records for Bonnie Raitt, Hugh Laurie, Lisa Hannigan, Elvis Costello, and Solomon Burke among many others.

Additionally, Henry has taken his musical talents to film and television. He has scored music for the films Jesus’ Son, Knocked Up, and Motherhood, as well as produced tracks for the film I’m Not There. His song “Stars” was featured in the closing credits in the fourth season of HBO’s Six Feet Under.

In 2013, Algonquin Press published, “Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him,” a book co-written by Joe and his brother Dave Henry.

In 2016, Henry teamed up with Billy Bragg on the collaborative album Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad. The pair were subsequently nominated as “Duo/Group of the Year” by the Americana Music Association.

As a solo artist and a producer alike, Henry’s records are marked with a consistent sonic depth, attention to narrative, and emphasis on the beauty of spontaneity.

This album contains no booklet.