Justin Townes Earle: “Harlem River Blues”

Musical trends tend to be cyclical, and, in 2010, rockabily seems to be making something of a resurgence– at least in country-roots circles– a mere sixty years after its original heyday. My favorite example, until now, was John Mellencamp’s pitch-perfect Sun Studios strut, as heard on his No Better Than This recording; now, we have a contender in Justin Townes Earle, as well. Three songs into his new Harlem River Blues and he’s doing his best Elvis howl over a slapped double bass and under a cloud of low-hanging reverb that would have made Sam Phillips positively giddy.

Anyone with the good taste to record rockabily songs on this level is okay in my book, and the fact that Earle nails the sound so well is enough to place him in the front ranks of talented young country/blues musicians. The thing about Earle, though, is that his roots go deep– and what else would you expect from a guy whose middle name is Townes? There isn’t any artifice on this album, no arbitrary conceits; the message is in the medium, as these songs, so steeped in country and folk and blues and rock history, are all wonderfully rugged hymns to scraping by in bankrupt times– to borrow a phrase from Loudon Wainwright, they’re ten songs for a new depression. They’re workin’ songs, travelin’ songs, hard-lovin’ songs, payin’ the bills songs. They’re songs for the truckstop, the honky tonk, the long haul.

The thread of history that runs through the album provides a degree of comfort. For as long as there’s been country music there have been songs like these, and the men who have always sung them– and to be sure, these are decidedly masculine songs– have, one senses, always benefited from doing so. I’m not sure that the themes here– of being in one place for too long (“One More Night in Brooklyn”), of working a shit job just to pay the bills (“Workin’ for the MTA”), and, on top of all that, of having to deal with a broken heart while maintaining your stoic, manly veneer (“Learning to Cry”)– are ones that only men can understand; that’s just the perspective from which Earle sings them. He’s got an outlaw cowboy’s sensibility– he’s tough and rugged on the outside, but he’s kind of a softy underneath it all.

As with the singer, so with the songs: There is, on every count, more to them than first meets the eye. It would almost be easy to peg Earle as a world-class country/roots impressionist– a revivalist who conjures ghosts of Americana past with effortless ease– but to do so would be to neglect the central truth of these songs as authentic, dirt-under-the-fingernails reflections of what American country and blues music mean, in a present tense, in today’s crises of manhood and finance. It would be to deny that, for all the spirits rattling around through these recordings– not just of Elvis and Carl Perkins but of Hank Williams in the grizzled tearjerker “Learning to Cry,” of Woody and Bob in the folksy rambling of “Wanderin,’” of rock and roll that predates the Beatles in “Slippin’ and Slidin’”– this recording never feels like it belongs to anyone other than Earle. He owns these songs, these sentiments, and these spirits that enliven them, and he conjures them at his will, to meet his purposes. Worth noting: Closing number “Rogers Park” is a rock ballad that one can easily imagine Ryan Adams recording; here, though, it’s given weight by the history that precedes and informs it. The difference is all the difference.

As a writer, Earle continues to excel. His mastery of American iconography is superb– aided by horns and a rock and roll backbeat, he pines for the love of a “Christchurch Woman” seemingly without irony; meanwhile, in the title song, he escapes life’s desperation into the merciful current of the sea– though whether he’s escaping into suicide or the second birth of baptism is never entirely clear. Either way, the conceit works, probably because of its ambiguity– particularly when the song picks up steam and turns into a joyful gospel jubilee. Earle’s true gift lies in his simplicity: “Workin’ for the MTA” is a work song that skips sentiment in favor of specificity, and in so doing communicates truth universally.

The same could be said of the album on the whole. These songs speak plainly, candidly, about the experiences of being a worker, a lover, an American; the vocabulary is that of history, of tradition, and of personal vision. The ten songs here are songs of and for the times of their creation; what’s more, they’re proof positive that Earle’s time has come. His understanding of American roots music is broader and deeper than anyone involved in the so-called alternative country scene, and, in composition, production, and performance, Harlem River Blues stands alongside the finest American roots music being made.

Richard Thompson: “Dream Attic”

Richard Thompson albums come in two basic varieties. On the one hand, you’ve got your albums that show, in one way or another, a kind of conceptual backbone — be it a narrative one (like his album-length exploration of suburban malaise, Mock Tudor) or stylistic (like his homage to traditional British folk, Front Parlour Ballads). On the other, you’ve got those albums that are simply collections of Richard Thompson songs — some of them great (The Old Kit Bag), some merely good (Sweet Warrior). Falling somewhere in between: his Mitchell Froom-produced albums of the ’90s, which weren’t necessarily united in style or subject matter but were certainly focused and uniform in their sound.

Also falling somewhere in between — and in some ways capturing the best of both worlds — is Dream Attic, Thompson’s first new recording in three years. There is no narrative running through these songs, and they seem written to emphasize Thompson’s eclecticism over all else; there are folk numbers intermingled with rock songs, love songs interspersed with political satires. So in that sense, the album is nothing more or less than a collection of Richard Thompson songs — something that’s always welcome.

Read the rest at Stereo Subversion.

Dr. John and the Lower 911: “Tribal”

But of course there’s a new Dr. John album in 2010, a year in which celebrating the culture and musical legacy of the Big Easy has been a thread running through major releases– a year that gave us Mardi Gras-ready party albums by Trombone Shorty and the Galactic Crew, to name but a couple. In the years following Hurricane Katrina, the music of New Orleans has been flowering, and it’s in full blossom in 2010; and of course, the music of Dr. John is the music of New Orleans. Why wouldn’t he jump into the celebration? How could he resist?

But John’s Tribal is a celebration of a slightly different sort. It isn’t City That Care Forgot– though it’s clearly rooted in the same post-Katrina awareness, and some of that album’s sobering political themes are once again in play, it’s a much more celebratory and varied release than that one– but neither is it cut from the same cloth as Shorty’s Backatown or Galactic’s Ya-ka-may. Those albums are very much of a piece– they feature many of the same musicians– and they’re all about looking forward to the city’s bright musical future; their roots are as much in hip-hop as they are in more traditional New Orleans idioms like jazz and R&B. John’s vision lays in a slightly different direction– it isn’t looking backward, really, so much as it’s taking stock, consolidating everything he’s done and acting as a remarkably assured and complete career summary– which, of course, doubles as a pretty good primer on the last fifty years or so of New Orleans popular music.

Working once again with his hot Lower 911 unit– who anchor everything here in tight, in-the-pocket grooves– John relishes in his gift of merging smooth New Orleans soul, rock, R&B, hoodoo blues, and even jazz expressions into something seamless and whole. This is a thick, intoxicating sonic brew that really cooks from the first note to the last, drenched in organ, punctuated by horns, adorned in loving but spare string arrangements. There are after-hours lounge grooves, and rowdier numbers that would have rocked any nightclub in the pre-rap era. And there are spookier elements, as well– eerie organ vamps that highlight the city and the performer’s more eccentric qualities.

It’s an album about Dr. John, and, by extension, it’s an album about New Orleans– or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, it stands tall as a career highlight and summary, as well as a reflection of a city’s culture, its music, its politics, and its ecology. That John would begin the album with a party invitation called “Feel Good Music” is both completely unsurprising and oddly comforting; the title summarizes everything John’s ever done, and the song could have introed basically any of his recordings, and yet it’s crucial that his post-Katrina urgency about the city that he loves is still married to his mission of making music that, well, feels good– and what more fitting homage to the city’s past and present alike could there possibly be?

On its own, a song like that could seem frivolous; here, it sets the tone for an album that sizzles with Mardi Gras-ready craziness but masks grim concerns and serious sentiments under its feel-good surface. The second song, “Lissen at Our Prayer,” is a sort of religious melange that reflects both the city’s diversity and its spiritualism: Expressions from different faiths are invoked in a sort of universal prayer that has ecological salvation at its heart. Its timing with the BP spill in the Gulf is probably a coincidence, but it couldn’t be more perfectly timed. Dr. John really unloads in “Only in America,” a furious track that channels the political outrage that’s been inseparable from New Orleans ever since the Bush years, while “What’s wit Dat”– a tirade about healthy eating– nicely highlights both the socio-political anger and the underlying eccentricity of this music.

But make no mistake: Though it may have weighty concerns lurking inside it, Tribal is every bit a celebration– because really, a true-blooded New Orleans album can’t help but be a celebration. Sometimes its hometown adoration comes from looking outside– notice how the opening influences of Indian music in the title cut reflect the city’s varied cultural milieu– but it also comes from looking back. John wrote three songs with the late Bobby Charles– an undersung artist whose possession of the city’s musical spirit is unimpeachable– and, of course, there is an appearance here from Allen Toussaint– as a songwriter, not as a performer– who, ever since his jazzy, joyful The Bright Mississippi released, has been the city’s patron saint and its cultural ambassador. Toussaint actually performed on the Shorty and Galactic albums from this year– and his contributions to the city’s music are nodded to in new releases by Cyndi Lauper and Mavis Staples, as well– and here his “Big Gap” is done as late-night funk. Lyrically, it’s a sharp take on class division and economic inequality; musically, it’s just a party. It’s music that feels good, and it’s music that’s more than meets the eye– in other words, it’s a worthy stand-in for Tribal itself, its presence here underlying why John, too, is a New Orleans treasure, and why his music is still vital for all of us.

John Mellencamp: “No Better Than This”

I almost hesitate to go into the specifics of the recording sessions that yielded No Better Than This. It’s not that it isn’t an interesting backstory; I’m just afraid it might give the wrong impression. John Mellencamp wrote these thirteen songs in a burst of inspired creativity while on tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson in the summer of 2009. He hooked up with producer T-Bone Burnett to put them to tape, and ended up getting the Americana tour of a lifetime from the genre’s formative tour guide; just as he led listeners down the road of American country and folk music on the bestselling O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, Burnett took Mellencamp on a hands-on journey through some of the seminal locales of American roots music. Parts of the album were recorded at the First African Baptist Church in Savannah; parts, at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis; and parts, in the same hotel room where Robert Johnson recorded so many of his Delta blues staples. Nothing about the sessions was elaborate: The songs were cut live, in a single room, into a single microphone.

If you think that sounds like a series of gimmicks, you obviously haven’t heard the record. Burnett writes in his liner notes that this is a haunted record, and he’s dead on. You can hear the ghosts– some of them holy, some of them impure– that rattle through these songs, just as surely as they’ve always loomed around the edges of American folk music, just as surely as you can hear the inspiration they’ve brought to Mellencamp. Forget the heartland rock and poor man’s Sprinsgsteen-isms you associate with the guy; this recording is primitive and raw and real, easily his finest. Rather than ending up as gimmicks, the unusual production methods have instead yielded an album that doesn’t settle for imitation, but literally goes to the source of American roots music. This isn’t an approximation of vintage Americana; it’s actually caked in the very same red dirt and clay.

In terms of sound alone, there’s nothing like this being made in 2010. It’s not often that you hear a recording where all the musicians are playing into one, shared mic, and it yields a sound that’s warm, immediate, lived-in. Burnett’s hand on the controls is completely unobtrusive, save for the reverberation he allows into some of the more rockabily-flavored recordings– which is, of course, an authentic touch. Mellencamp’s voice is unadorned, preserved in all its ragged glory; he’s as raspy as Tom Waits on some of these songs.

The songs are, for the most part, stark, naked poetry in the cowboy vein– folk songs covered in country dust and more than a slight tint of the blues. There is one notable exception to this, and it comes late on the album. “Easter Eve,” at six-and-a-half minutes in length, is a genially rambling narrative in the tradition of Dylan’s talking blues, of Jack Elliot, of Woody Guthrie– it’s an idiom so timeless it’s essentially stitched into the fabric of American song. Mellencamp isn’t known for his lyric writing, but this story-song is wryly funny, tender, outrageous, redemptive, and totally wonderful.

Album opener “Save Some Time to Dream” is almost its total opposite: Rather than relish the particulars, this song embraces the universal in a way that makes it powerfully evocative and transcendent. Broadly, it’s a song about hope and faith, about endurance through tribulation; Mellencamp played it at some Obama rallies, but more than just political, the song is personal first, almost devotional in its introspection and its spiritual candor. The guitar and Jay Bellerose’s gently thumping percussion share the space with Mellencamp’s voice, and the whole thing does indeed sound like a warm, hazy dream. There’s a similar effect on “Coming Down the Road,” where Marc Ribot’s bluesy electric guitar licks are put on equal footing with a slapped, rockabilly bass.

Sin and redemption stalk this record, almost literally so on “Right Behind Me,” where an almost ragtime beat is slowed down into an ominous pulse, a ragged fiddle sawing away as Mellencamp sings– with increasing resolve– about being at the crossroads of God and the Devil. The song touches on death, too, as does the terrifically bluesy rockabilly number “Each Day of Sorrow.” There are some beautiful love songs– including the lovelorn “Don’t Forget About Me,” where a tough-talker lets down his guard for what must be the simplest and among the most affecting country-blues shuffles on record. And there’s something very different on “The West End,” a song that continues Mellencamp’s fascination with the decline of the American city. But rather than writing a topical song, he’s written one so lean and precise that it could’ve been a blues standard; the way his compassion turns so sharply toward apathy is one of his neatest writing tricks ever, and makes the song that much more affecting and complex.

But “complex” isn’t the first word that comes to mind with this album: Indeed, it is disarming in its simplicity, and authentic in a way that no recent approximations of old American folk and blues have been. And yet, by its very virtue of being American music, it is broad, deep, and at times contradictory; it’s tough yet sensitive, rooted in the past yet shunning nostalgia, caked in dirt and mire yet transcendentally beautiful at the same time. Mellencamp and Burnett do not use those American landmarks as mere gimmicks; they earn their own place in those American legends.

Film Break: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

My review of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World– which opens today– is posted at CT Movies. Spoiler alert: I compare it to Juno, Speed Racer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and American Splendor. Needless to say, I’m pretty wild about it, and would place it easily among my favorite films of 2010– which has been a year rich in masterful movies.

Ray Lamontagne & the Pariah Dogs: “God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise”

I remember, once upon a time, when Ray Lamontagne swore he’d never work with another producer save for Ethan Johns. You can’t blame the guy. Johns is truly gifted behind the controls, and together he and Lamontagne made three very fine albums that were consistent with each other yet also very much their own entities, with their own characters. Johns helped establish the husky-voiced soul singer as both a Tim Buckley and a Van Morrison for a new generation, and the two of them carved out a distinct presence culled form the nocturnal side of American roots music. The three records they made were rich in beauty, alluring in their understatement, vibrant in their balance of humor and heartache. And oh yeah: They sounded great. Lamontagne’s loyalty to Johns has never been blind; until now, it’s always been in his own best interests as an artist.

But things change, you grow up, you move on: God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise is Lamontagne’s first album made without Johns, though to be fair, he’s remained true to the spirit of his loyalty oath, if not the letter; technically he is working with another producer, but it’s only himself. Lamontagne made the album in his Massachusetts home with his new band, the Pariah Dogs, who share the billing with him on the album cover– and if that sounds like a gesture from Lamontagne that he’s trying to move into new, more band-oriented territory, let it be said from the outset that he obviously absorbed everything Johns taught him. God Willin’ is another Lamontgne album that sounds, immediately, like an essential Lamontagne album, a continuation of what came before it but also a subtle cultivation of familiar sounds. It isn’t surprising, but it does have its own character and feel. It sounds great, and not particularly different from the Johns recordings. And while the new band is predictably killer– it includes such studio superstars as Jay Bellerose (drums), Jennifer Condos (bass), Patrick Warren (keys), Eric Heywood (guitar) and Greg Leisz (pedal steel)– they aren’t highlighted quite as much as you might expect. Or hope.

That said, the album starts with a bang– and arguably the best track Lamontagne’s ever cut. “Repo Man” takes his fascination with American roots music in an exciting new direction, forsaking both the mellowness of his folksier work and the shiny, horn-driven propulsion of his Van Morrison-styled numbers in favor of a raw, dirty Meters groove. The full band is present to kick up the dust, with Jay Bellerose taking the lead on a spidery, locomotive rhythm. The guitars sound is simple and inelegant, and the whole track suggests the sweat of summer heat– and then the singer enters in his roughest, dirtiest blues voice, delivering a nasty kiss-off to an unfaithful lover but leaving time for some laughing sexual asides. It’s a purely vulgar, gritty song that drips with sweat and sex and dark humor, and it kicks the door down for what could have been an explosive new recording in Lamontagne’s recording career.

So it’s a little disappointing, at first, when the rest of the record doesn’t pan out that way. Everything else here is moody, sad-sack country, late-night heartache where Bellerose’s drums don’t pound but simply anchor the songs in American soil, and where Leisz’ steel guitar quickly becomes the set’s dominant, mood-setting instrument. Nothing else here even attempts the kind of momentum “Repo Man” delivers, but it’s soulful in a different way. Yes, it’s the kind of midnight regret and lovelorn country-folk Lamontagne’s been making for four records now, but his craft and his confidence continue to expand, and God Willin’ delivers its own particular character that fits well with its rustic, folksy title: The scales are tipped more than ever toward country-fried weepies, honky-tonky tearjerkers and barroom bawlers. This is Lamontagne at his twangiest, and, thus far, his grittiest.

It’s all very sad, very soulful, very quiet: He still sings in a hush, and the band is more about maintaining ambiance than burning down the barn. (Admittedly, they leave nothing but ashes on that opening cut.) Lamontagne essentially takes a solo turn on the sad lullaby “Are We Really Through”– the waste of a perfectly great band, perhaps, but the music on this ten-song set is wall-to-wall beautiful and moving. Lamontagne is nothing if not deep here, as he chooses to burrow inward instead of expanding his sound outward. The result is a record that feels lived-in, alive, and way older than it actually is: “New York City’s Killing Me” is a weary tearjerker that could have been a standard, “Beg Steal or Borrow” is a lively and spirited mid-tempo number, and “Old Before Your Time” is a terrifically Gram Parsons-esque, banjo-driven country number. This is his best-yet set of lyrics– worldly, wise, tough-talking but ultimately very sensitive.

It is, in short, a Ray Lamontagne album– a singer/songwriter album that’s in touch with its roots and deep with its own character. It’s personal music that speaks in a universal vocabulary. It’s a charming collaboration with a new group of cohorts– let’s hope they stick around, and bring some additional heat next time around– but it’s also, in a sense, the first album Lamontagne’s made himself. Calling it his best may be a slight stretch, but it is, if nothing else, his purest.

Moe Green: “Rocky Maivia: Non Title Match”

You’re probably familiar with the work of Rocky Maivia; you just might know him by a different name. He was born Dwayne Johnson, and began his career as a professional wrestler. He’s long since changed his name to The Rock — and then, seemingly, back to Dwayne Johnson — and made the jump from the ring to the silver screen. Make a list of all the lamest family-friendly Disney movies of the past few years and I’ll bet you’ll find that he’s been in roughly half of them.

Compared to The Rock, Maivia is an unassuming enough name for a guy with such a glitzy, flashy occupation, just as Moe Green is a pretty non-pretentious name for a rapper. That Green hails from the San Francisco Bay area — a region known for a particularly flashy, dance-oriented hip-hop scene — makes his rather low-key achievement that much more impressive. On Rocky Maivia: Non Title Match, Green presents a chill, agreeably lush and easy-going take on hip-hop that shuns glitz and glamour in favor of down-to-earth productions and rhymes that emphasize craft over gimmicks. In today’s hip-hop culture, that’s a respectably bold approach for an artist struggling to make it big.

Read the rest at Stereo Subversion.

Tom Jones: “Praise and Blame”

My review of Praise and Blame– the new, Ethan Johns-produced album by Tom Jones– is up at CT.

I never thought I’d say this about a Tom Jones record, but this one is one of the most surprising and affecting things I’ve heard all year. It’s structured like a journal of spiritual awakening– a cycle of sin and salvation, of revelations both general and personal– and while there’s a definite late-life spareness to it– in my review, I compare it to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings– it’s also robust and full of life in a way that those Cash albums weren’t, necessarily.

Rap Round-Up: Rick Ross; Curren$y; Slum Village

Here’s a quick rundown on three hip-hop albums that have been spending some time in my stereo this week. All three are among the more interesting rap records I’ve heard this year, with the first being surprisingly killer; the second being rather charming in its own goofy way; and the third being an old-school manifesto (pun intended) that takes some time to grow on you, but gradually reveals its deep craft and affecting lyricism. As an aside, I was initially going to include Bun B’s new one here, too, but honestly, after the church organ on the first track, I pretty much lose interest with the rest of it.

Rick Ross – Teflon Don
It’s hard to imagine a more surprising mainstream rap album in 2010 than Teflon Don; part chart-topping summer blockbuster, part classic Def Jam-styled personal manifesto, Rick Ross’ latest find the rap heavyweight playing up his own foul-mouthed, thuggish persona long after less confident MCs would have begun tapering it off. But far from turning into schtick, Ross’ persona is only growing deeper: Yes, he’s still larger than life and completely full of himself, comparing himself to John Lennon mere seconds into the opening track and going on to demand his fans build a statue in his honor, but his hustlin’ anthems are offset here by songs rich in history and empathy; sure, he’s still hustlin’ for the sake of his own ego, but he makes a compelling case that he’s just as passionate about doing his parents proud, creating a good life for his offspring, and leaving behind a legacy that he can be proud of.

In other words, the more he inflates himself to cartoon-level proportions, the more humane and relatable Ross seems; it’s a contradiction, but Teflon Don is an album that celebrates rather than shuns complexity and paradox, making it one of the year’s most  accomplished and rewarding mainstream hip-hop offerings. That wouldn’t mean much were the album not also bangin’, but thankfully Ross brings the heat from the first note to the last: This is a luxuriously shiny, decked-out rap album, and from the opening strains of orchestral pomp to the high-profile guest spots for Jay-Z, Kanye, and T.I., it’s clear that this is an oversized record from an oversized entertainer. Yet as fun as the sleek, stylish singles are– and in the blazing, Illuminati-referencing Jay-Z hook-up “Free Mason” and the club-rockin’ first single “Super High,” he gives Big Boi a run for his money in the hot rap singles department– these songs are balanced out by the soulful pathos of Cee-Lo’s gospel backing in “Tears of Joy” and the sweet Erykah Badu hook in “Maybach Music”– moments where the noise and the hype are dialed down to make room for something that sounds astonishingly close to intimacy.

Curren$y – Pilot Talk
If ever there was a textbook example of stoner rap, it’s here: Everything about Louisiana rapper Curren$y’s new LP is thoroughly trippy, ranging from his languid, unaffected drawl to his positively stream-of-conscious flow, which encompasses the usual topics of girls, money, and ganja, but reaches its most deliriously delightful linguistic heights when the rapper trails off into sheer nonsense– as on the title song, a weird pot-dream of a song that finds our narrator launching battle-style assaults against King Kong, championing his own, clearly superior gift for swatting planes out of the sky. The tracks here are similarly trippy and a little weird, but never disarmingly so; as with the rapper’s nonsense lyrics, there’s a certain warmth here, a psych-rock haze that envelopes the listener in golden layers of synths, organs, and guitars. Some listeners might grow weary of Curren$y’s slacker lyrics, but it doesn’t seem like he cares much: He’s simply out to have a low-key, laid-back good time, something he provides for any listener who is able to enjoy the simple pleasures afforded by the luxurious, spaced-out Snoop Dog duet “Seat Change” and the terrifically funky, horn-driven anthem “The Day,” featuring spot-on contributions from Mos Def and Jay Electronica.

Slum Village – Villa Manifesto
They say that you can tell a lot about a man by the company that he keeps, and I think that might be particularly true of rappers. Just look at the guest list for Slum Village’s new album: On the third song along, you’ll see both A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife and De La Soul’s Posdnuos– two legends of alternative, socially-conscious hip-hop who have largely flown over the radar for the last several years– but also the name of J Dilla, the late, renowned DJ and Soulaquarian who used to be a central member of the Slum Village posse, and whose work provides many of the tracks on this record. That all sounds about right, as Villa Manifesto plays out like a primer in this kind of underground, jazz-based hip-hop, with the proceedings basically ignoring the boom-bap rhythms and glossy trends of modern hip-hop in favor of lush, soul-infused tracks; spartan, old-school beats; and, on songs like could-be-hit-single “Faster,” larger than life hooks that recall the pure R&B of guys like D’Angelo, only with more polish. The result is an impressively complete celebration of a culture and a history; it’s also an astonishingly real, gritty look at death, perseverance, and overcoming– as fine a tribute to Dilla as has yet been released.

My Joe Henry Wishlist

Perhaps you heard the announcement– made some months ago– that the one-of-a-kind Joe Henry would be producing a record for kindred spirits Over the Rhine. By now, the album is finished, and forthcoming in the first part of the next year; my enthusiasm for the pairing hasn’t diminished a bit since the announcement was first made. If you know me, or have read my music reviews over the years, you know that Over the Rhine is one of my favorite bands of all time, and Henry one of my favorite producers. Not only that, but they seem to me like their spirits would prove to be perfectly complementary. For years, I’ve said that I hoped the two would one day collaborate.

And evidently, wishes do come true. And that got me thinking: If my Joe Henry/Over the Rhine wish can come true, maybe there are others that can come true, as well. So in that spirit, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten artists who I’d most like to see make albums under the watchful eye of Mr. Henry; let’s hope at least a few more of these dreams become reality.

(By way of disclaimer: Yes, I do think a Henry/Dylan pairing would be pretty cool, but I’ve left Bob off this list so that I can save him for my Jack White wishlist. I mean, can you imagine? Bob Dylan in full-on garage-rock mode, Jack at the controls and, possibly, Meg on the skins?)

10. The Roots
I’m pitching this one pretty low on the list for the simple reason that, frankly, I’m not sure that The Roots need the help right now; with ?uestlove at the helm, they’re doing the best work of their career. Still, Henry commented, years back, that he’d like to work with The Roots, and the prospect of him working in a soulful hip-hop idiom is tantalizing, while the thought of The Roots making their most laid-back, low-key and organic album yet– and with Henry at the helm, could it possibly be anything else?– has its merits as well.

09. Lucinda Williams
Frankly, she could use a little guidance these days.

08. Elvis Costello
I’m halfway cheating here; Henry technically has produced Costello, on the collaborative album he made with Allen Toussaint, The River in Reverse. But I’d love to hear him make a concept-free solo album for Costello– intimate, loose, funny, without any of the pretensions or stiffness that have marked many of Costello’s recent works. In other words, a Momofuku with Jay Bellerose on drums.

07. Merle Haggard
Here’s a guy who seems right up Henry’s alley: An old voice who still has much to tell us, who’s still making albums that are funny and warm and wise and full of spark. Henry, I think, is just the man to coax a few new tricks out of Hag– to not only build on his legacy, but to truly expand it.

06. Sam Phillips
They already work with the same group of musicians. Might as well just make this one official.

05. Robert Plant
Robert Plant is increasingly consumed by the myths of the weird old Americana, and his work in this vein– with T-Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller– has yielded some fine results. Who better than Henry to take it to the next level– to marry the mystery and allure of Dreamland and Raising Sand with some of the old grit and muscle of the best Zeppelin albums?

04. Josh Ritter
I’m very much a fan of Ritter’s creative relationship with Sam Kassirer and the fine albums it’s wrought, but I increasingly wonder how Ritter would sound in a more spare, organic environment– say, with Joe Henry’s crack studio band behind him?

03. PJ Harvey
I love this lady’s voice, I love her songwriting, I love her risks– but oh, how sweet would it be to hear her work with a producer who restrains her from her indulgences and her baser instincts?

02. Elton John
His big comeback album is, reportedly, on the way, with T-Bone behind the wheel. An album with Joe Henry seems like the next logical step. It’s time for John to make mature, elegant albums like he used to make, and I suspect that Henry is just the man for capturing that old Tumbleweed Connection magic again.

01. Erykah Badu
Badu is, in my opinion, the finest soul singer working today– and I love the inspired weirdness she’s brought to her New Amerykah albums, as well as the R&B muscle of Mama’s Gun. But I think she has her most open-hearted, generous work yet to come: Something warm, in-the-moment, and improvisational. Something where the focus isn’t on the production, but solely on that voice, and on the songs. Get Joe at the controls and, perhaps, Bellerose and ?uestlove sharing drum duties, and I don’t see how it could be anything but an instant classic.