Joe Henry

Despite having an encyclopedic knowledge of music, I was totally unaware of Joe Henry until I saw one of his records named in a recent "50 Best Americana Albums of All Time" list. Intrigued, I did some searching and checked out his Wikipedia entry. Among his numerous accolades including Grammy Awards, production credits and having his songs covered by much bigger artists (Madonna for example) one thing stood out:

In 1993 he recorded 2 albums with The Jayhawks as his backing group.

What? 2 records featuring one of my favorite bands of all time that I knew nothing about? Wnoa. A quick search on Apple Music and I discovered they were both luckily still in print and available for streaaming. So I did the 21st century equivalent of dropping the needle and was completely mesmerized for the next 90 minutes. Here was everything I love about those classic early Jayhawks albums in 23 songs I'd never heard before. Sure, the voice singing the majority of the lead vocals was different, but the beautiful harmonies, lush production and amazing lyrics were all there.

I can't begin to recommend the albums 'Short Man's Room' and 'Kindness of The World' enough. It's hard to believe I'd never listened to these until last night, but my world is immediately a better place for having found them. Yours will be too.