From writing to recording and producing, Joe Henry knows how to keep himself busy. This year he released his CD "Civilians", wrote the music for "Knocked Up" with Loudon Wainwright III, and produced several tracks for Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan film "I'm Not There". In 2003 he won a Grammy for producing Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me". Burke has said about Joe Henry, "He's an exciting young man, a talented gentleman, he has a lot of thought, a lot of vision, and it's very different, very inspirational--he knows exactly what he wants."

Joe's studio has become a place that inspires musicians to explore and collaborate. It's a kind of haven that would make any music lover dream to get a chance to share in some of its mystery and magic. Joe's music brings together the roots of rock, jazz, and blues while delivering a contemporary sound.

On November 9th at the El Rey Theatre, Joe will share the stage with Loudon Wainwright III.

LAist: You have described Loudon Wainwright III as your hero and a mentor. Now that you work with him is he just a regular guy?

Joe Henry: No he's not just a regular guy. I mean he's a good friend, but I don't hold him in any less high esteem. I think he is one of the most underrated songwriters considering his influence. When I was a young teen, I was listening to everything. A very small handful on songwriters were the ones that I kept coming back to continuously. I loved everything about what they did. I was interested in what they did even what I would regard as their missteps. I was interested in what they were doing and what they were trying to do. I would put Loudon in the category with Tom Waits and Randy Newman. He's never been acknowledged in the same way the two of them have been. He was always on the same scale for me. I still regard him as such. I think he's doing some of the best work of his career now.

You and Loudon collaborated on the music for "Knocked Up". Can you describe your working process?

It came about primarily because of Judd Apatow, the film's writer and director, is a huge fan of Loudon. He gives him acting gigs in almost everything he's doing as well. At one point he approached Loudon about scoring the film. He wanted it to be very song driven even the score, not just where a song presents itself in the context of a film. You hear it in the song, even in the score, that he wanted it to be derived from song. Loudon and I were just talking about doing a project together. So when Judd asked Loudon, Loudon said well I've never taken on that kind of work before. Judd said why don't you do it together. We just kind of jumped in based on sheer instinct. I had done some film scoring, but this was sort of a different way of approaching it. We started writing songs based on the themes of the film. It is much easier to go from a complete song, then to take a twenty second cue and try to turn it into a song later. Even if we had a fragmented instrumental idea that lasted twenty minutes, it started to be our inclination because we were trained to do it. If was an interesting enough fragment of music, one of us would turn it into a song over the weekend because that's just how we think.

Who came up with the idea of covering Peter Blegvad's song "Daughter"?

Well that was something that we had done earlier. That is the only thing we had done in the studio before. We had recorded that song together for a benefit compilation where I had produced Loudon. The benefit record for the National Fatherhood Initiative was to encourage fathers to be more involved in their children's lives. When they approached Loudon about doing it he came up with that song because Peter is an old friend of his and actually and old acquaintance of mine from my New York days as well. It was something Loudon already wanted to do. So we had recorded it for this benefit which was sort of our wading in the water as far as working together. Judd had heard it and loved it and was determined to find a way to use it in the film. We didn't know he was going to use it in such a prominent way as he does at the close of the film. It was something that he found himself continuing to go back to. It became sort of a template for the sonic pallet that we were going to use for the film score. That sort of instrumentation, that style of a folky song.

On November 9, you and Loudon Wainwright III will play at the El Rey. With the title Strange Civilians, I can guess that you will play songs from "Strange Weirdos" and your CD "Civilians". What else can we expect that night?

Well, I've been making another record with Loudon since "Knocked Up". That's the first piece of a bigger and more long term idea for his inevitable box set that we have been talking about for the last year. He's the only artist of his stature that I can think of who hasn't been collected. His body of work has not been represented by a box set that people can go and really dig into. We are working towards that eventuality. We've had this idea of taking an album worth of songs from his very first three records and reinterpreting them now as the bonus disc of a box set. Songs that make sense to be reinterpreted at this stage in his life. No songs are we rerecording just to do it, but things that really do have a different meaning and a renewed bit of meaning by his current interpretation. We just recorded a shockingly beautiful to my ear album of him revisiting stuff from his earliest period and we are going to play a lot from that as well. We use the same band configuration for the live show.

That would be the band that backed Loudon at McCabe's last December Greg Leisz, Patrick Warren and David Piltch?

With the addition of drummer Jay Bellerose who was away that night.

Will Jay be playing his vintage 1957 Gretch set?

You know Jay has so many beautiful vintage drums. I don't know what he is likely to pull out, but it will be something beautiful and something vintage. Absolutely.

You have called yourself a smart casting director. How does it feel to head into the studio to record "Civilians" with amazing musicians like Bill Frisell on guitar and Van Dyke Parks on piano?

Well, I feel fearless. That's how I feel because there is nothing that couldn't happen. With musicians like that in the room your only limit is your imagination. It's very inspiring to think that any you think of, there is somebody in the room that knows how to articulate the idea. It's very liberating to start from that point of view.

Do you plan your arrangements ahead of time- or wait to develop then with the musicians in the studio?

Oh I never plan them ahead of time. I would never suppose such a thing. I feel like if I do that then I am limiting everybody in the room to the limits of my imagination. I mean I know what I would do. I know what that is. I want to know else can it be. Frequently you don't know and don't want to know until the ensemble starts to throw it around a little bit and you can hear the possibilities. Musician are always completely comfortable and delighted to be directed, but I think it's tying the hands a bit to suggest too much beforehand about you think they ought to do. I like to start playing and hear what everybody's hearing. Those are just more options that you can pull from. You can say, oh wow I was thinking something else, now I can hear it wants to go this way and that's a really exciting notion. You can always go back, but I would never want to limit anyone beforehand to doing what I hear. I bring in a song and that's a map, but I love to know where other people hear it going.

Your list of collaborators reads like a who's who list of amazing musicians. We've talked about some of them already. In addition you have worked with Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, who do you still want to work with?

Many people. All kind of people I love to work with. I've said before I'd love to make a record with Prince. I'd like to make a record with Doc Watson. I'd like to make a record with Bill Withers. I'd love to make a full record with Mavis Staples. I've done some recording with her, but I'd love to make a fully realized album with her and with Irma Thomas for that matter who I have also worked with. All kind of people. I am hoping to make a record in some way with my friend Chocolate Genius. He's a brilliant singer and songwriter, Mark Anthony Thompson. I'd love to make a full record with him at some point. That's just for starters.

That should keep you busy for a while.

That's the idea.

What are you listening to now?

I have been listening to Charlie Parker, Fats Waller, Skip James and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

You released your CD "Civilians" earlier this year. In the liner notes you talk about the ghost in your South Pasadena house. You work in a studio in your basement. Has she made her presence known recently?

I don't know if she has or if I have gotten so used to her presence. I don't know where my regular life ends and hers might begin. There is absolutely a vibe at this house that we inherited and I am very much at peace with that.

How many guitars do you own and how often do you add to your collection?

I probably own somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five guitars. There may be a couple I am forgetting about. I add to it more often than I ought to. It's a little bit of an obsession. I am the kind of guitar player that expects the guitar to bring something to the table. Someone like Richard Thompson can pick up anything and make it sound like him. I expect the guitar to do half the work, to suggest ideas, and through its voice to send me off in a particular direction. I leave guitars out all over the house on stands, so I can pick them up at random and hear what they might have to tell me.

Do any of your guitars have a story?

Most of the guitars I play are old. Some of them very old. I like picking up a guitar that has had some history before my encounter with it. It influences me though osmosis. The guitars that I mostly play at the moment are from the 30's. They have had a significant life before me.

You just returned from playing at the Great American Music Hall in SF. Where is your favorite place to go on tour?

The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco is one of my very favorite rooms in the country to play. I love the city and I particularly love to play in that room. I am always happy to play in New York. I like playing in London. I like playing in Paris.

What is you favorite place to play in New York?

In September I played at the Gramercy Theater, which I hadn't played before. I quite enjoyed it. I love a small intimate room that is still structured like a theater as opposed to a nightclub. I like what it suggests to the listener to walk into a theater. I've played at the Beacon Theatre in London. I've seen many wonderful shows there. But I've only played there as an opening act for someone. I've never played my own show at the Beacon Theatre, but I can imagine it would a wonderful place to spend a full evening. I love an old fashion theater like that. I've played at Carnegie Hall as an opening act for Ani DiFranco. It was significant for me to step out onto that stage where Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Leadbelly, and Duke Ellington among many others have performed. It's a beautiful room. I sort of remember it as an abstraction. It don't think of it in terms of an ambition. It was just a remarkable place to be.

When you work at home, do your kids visit you in the studio? What do they think about your work?

My son is sixteen and he's a musician himself. He goes to performing arts high. He's a jazz musician. Very decidedly. And my studio is in the basement. Of course they visit there. It's not like it's off limits or anything. It's just part of the path of their day some how. My daughter who is ten doesn't have a whole lot of interest in the music. I think I probably demystified it. I think my son's friends think it's remarkable. They are in the jazz department. A lot of people come through my basement that his friends are great fans of and I think it's mind blowing to them that he comes home from school and there is Van Dyke Parks or Patrick Warren or Bill Frisell in my basement. But I do think it is demystified for my son in a certain way. He appreciates all of these musicians but it's not unusual for him to encounter such people.

What would we find you doing on a day off?

When you are a musician, I would say it's very much like being a doctor. It's a part of your identity whether you are occupied with it or not. It's not a separate pursuit. It does become part of who you are not just what you do with yourself. I guess that's my way of saying I don't necessarily have a day off. I try to stay clear of my work sometimes, but with different success rates. I like to cook, but there is always work to be done.

You like to cook? We would find you in the kitchen?

I do like to cook. There is a great parallel between cooking and making music I find. Many of the musicians I know are either great cooks or great appreciators.

What's your best dish?

Something Italian. Something very rich and very heavy that's an excuse to open a bottle of wine.

Where is your favorite place in LA?

We live in a very small community here. I like the small town quality of life in South Pasadena. It's very much like leaving town without leaving town. I like my proximity to everything. I like being in a city that feels like a small community unto itself. I have to admit I am kind of a homebody. I love my house. I feel very grateful to have it and that I have my work going on here. So if I have free time, it's not as much about getting out. It's more about inviting people over and cooking a big meal with friends. That's my ideal as far as downtime. I do love Los Angeles. I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life. I moved around a lot when I was very young. I moved to LA in the spring of 1990. I've been here for quite some time. My children are both natives of Los Angeles. So I have an emotional attachment that I probably didn't imagine when I first came here.

You can see Joe Henry and Loudon Wainwright III at the El Rey Theatre on November 9.

LAist will talk to Joe about his collaboration with Todd Haynes for the film "I'm Not There" when it opens on November 21.

photo by Melanie Nissen