13 Strings. While it’s doubtful this will make the cut, it’s what’s been floating through my mind as the title of the new Jo Henley album coming out this spring. Why 13 Strings? Because every sound you’ll hear comes from just our two acoustic guitars and my voice (get it? 13 strings?). Nothing else. No bass, no drums, no keyboards or shakers or even a harmonica. In short, it’s an acoustic duo album. We wanted to give listeners the intimate, stripped-down feeling of being in the room while Ben and I play for ourselves—almost like a live album, but with the sonic quality of a studio production. In fact, our initial goal was to just revisit some older Jo Henley songs and give them a simplified spin. Three, four tunes, max. Maybe a new one. But once we got in the studio with our old buddy Tim Lynch from The Recording Company, we loved the process—and the results—so much that it felt silly not to record more. So we tracked a couple tunes that we’d been playing out live over the years but hadn’t yet recorded. And we were so excited about those songs that we wrote four brand new ones. The result? 10 songs. 13 strings.
I love this record. Love it. It feels very alive and, lyric-wise, timely, and it brings me great joy to know it will stand alongside the rest of our discography. We can’t wait for you to hear it. It’s still being mixed and mastered, but here’s a snippet of one of the new songs, called “Someday.” More to come soon. Stay tuned!
-Andy