Levon Henry News Today

Fresh off triumphant performances at New York’s Town Hall and Big Ears Festival, guitar virtuoso Julian Lage announces fall tour dates to continue the celebration of his latest opus, Speak to Me, out now on Blue Note Records. The tour kicks off at the Country Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater on September 7 and ends on September 22 at The Palace Theatre in Los Angeles.

Guitar virtuoso Julian Lage has announced the March 1 release of Speak To Me, his vivid and wondrously textured new Blue Note album produced by Joe Henry which offers a series of dispatches from his ongoing search for narrative beyond words. Intimate in tone and capacious in intention, the music travels a wide range of American music and delights in the deliberate crossing of wires between gospel hymn and rural blues, California singer-songwriter sunshine, and skronky jazz.

Lage epitomizes modern jazz guitar, and he’s going to be the Resident Artistic Director at SF Jazz over the third weekend of January, holding court at the Miner Auditorium

The recent passing of the singer, actor, and activist Harry Belafonte got me thinking of the strange roads folk music has traveled in this country. When Bob Dylan came onto the scene in 1961, people thought of him as the first folk superstar. But as Dylan takes pains to point out in his unconventional and brilliant memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, the whole idea of folk music is that it derives from traditions going back centuries.

The critically acclaimed musician, who moved to Harpswell in 2021, is revered by peers and critics for his evocative songwriting and has won three Grammys as a producer.

Critics picks for entertainment in the week ahead.

Highlights for April 27-May 3 include Sabrina Carpenter, Feist, Buddy Guy, Smokey Robinson and Graham Nash.

If I were to praise Joe Henry’s resume, you’d be justified in asking which one? On one hand he’s an acclaimed recording artist with more than 15 albums to his credit, including collaborations with folk icon Billy Bragg and jazz genius Ornette Coleman. At the same time, his life as a record producer has been at least as extraordinary, having steered albums by Bonnie Raitt, the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the historic pairing of Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. It’s hard to think of an...

Release Day Picks this week highlight new albums by The Arcs, The Mother Hips, Mike Dillon & Punkadelick, Phish, Joe Henry, Aoife O’Donovan and Bob Dylan.

Renowned singer-songwriter and producer Joe Henry announced a new album, 'All The Eye Can See,' and shared the title track