Alanis Morissette
Photo: Regina Thomas/Heather Stanley

Alanis Morissette, long a vocal supporter of a woman's right to choose, will put her music where her mouth is when she headlines a benefit concert for Voters for Choice in Washington, D.C., later this month.

The singer will appear along with Blues Traveler's John Popper and Chan Kinchla, as well as Michael Franti & Spearhead and Joe Henry, at D.A.R. Constitution Hall on September 25, according to Voters for Choice executive director Maureen Britell. Feminist activist Gloria Steinem is the board president of the organization, which works to elect pro-choice candidates.

Britell said the group asked Morissette to play an acoustic set, but the Canadian singer offered to bring her band. Morissette wrapped up her next album, for which a release date has not been set, earlier this year (see "Morissette Previews New Album At Los Angeles Show").

Tickets for the concert will go on sale Friday through Ticketmaster. VIP seats, including packages with passes to an after-show party with the artists, can be purchased from Voters for Choice at (202) 944-5080.

• Alanis Morissette
• Blues Traveler
• Spearhead
• Joe Henry

Joe Henry
Photo: MTV News

Joe Henry, the noted singer/songwriter, presides over a most unprecedented musical event with the May 15 release of his ninth album, Scar. According to a spokesperson from Mammoth Records, a tune on Scar, "Stop," is an early version of "Don't Tell Me," the second single from the latest album by Henry's sister-in-law, one Madonna Louise Ciccone. "Don't Tell Me" was written by Henry, Madonna and Madonna's co-producer Mirwais.

The Madonna factor is about the only thing that could overshadow the fact that "Stop" also features the first cameo performance by avant-garde jazz saxophone eminence Ornette Coleman since James "Blood" Ulmer's 1980 album, Tales of Captain Black. Got that? Coleman will spray his harmolodic voodoo all over what is, in essence, a Madonna song. The closest contemporary analogue would be Miles Davis' rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" on You're Under Arrest (1985).

Henry's vocals have more in common with a Tom Waits performance than with Madonna's lascivious version of the tune.

Henry and Coleman will be accompanied by a blue-chip assortment of jazz players on the tune, which includes pianist Brad Mehldau, guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer Brian Blade. This lineup also takes on "Lock and Key," "Mean Flower" and "Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation." Scar also features funk bassist/singer MeShell Ndegeocello on the tracks "Rough and Tumble" and "Nico Lost One Small Buddha."

• Joe Henry
• Madonna

Madonna referred to herself as "the Susan Lucci of the music industry" in an interview with Jim Farber of the "New York Daily News" this past week -- referring to the "All My Children" star who has been nominated multiple times for an Emmy, but has yet to win one.

Of course, Madonna was referring to her past luck with the Grammy Awards, although she did receive a statuette back in 1991 for Best Long Form Music Video for the "Blonde Ambition World Tour Live" collection. However, Madonna is hoping to add a few more to her collection after Wednesday night, thanks to the six nominations she's earned this year for "Ray of Light."

Meanwhile, the singer turned up at brother-in-law Joe Henry's show at the Conga Room in Los Angeles last week. Among those also in attendance were the Counting Crows' Adam Duritz, 311's Nick Hexum and the Wallflowers' Jakob Dylan.

The younger Dylan, a longtime fan of Joe Henry's, was also tapped to sing back-up on the track "Skin and Teeth," from Henry's seventh album, "Fuse."

Henry, who's married to Madonna's sister Melanie, told MTV News that he and Madonna were not as different as their contrasting styles may suggest.

"I quite like the new record," Henry said, referring to Madonna's Ray of Light," "I think we're as close to being interested in the same kind of music as we've ever been. There used to be a lot more distance between the things she does and the kind of things I'd like to do, but we're still not exactly in the same line of work." [28.8 RealVideo]

Henry's new album, "Fuse," arrives in stores on March 9, while you can find out if Madonna garners any more awards from the National Recording Academy when the Grammys are handed out on Wednesday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

For more Grammy news, check out the MTV News Grammy Archive.

• Joe Henry
• Madonna

Joe Henry Goes South (By Southwest)

May 3, 1996 -- There are few people in the world with schedules as hectic as Madonna, who's now in London for the final month of "Evita" filming. So when her brother in law, singer/songwriter Joe Henry, came up with the idea for them to sing a duet for next month's all-star "Sweet Relief 2" benefit album for under-appreciated songwriter Vic Chesnutt, it took months for Madonna and Henry to be in the same place at the same time. But with her Sister's pasta as a lure, Madonna wound up in Henry's garage to record a Chesnutt-penned track called "Guilty By Association."

Joe Henry also says that song was irresistible because he sometimes sees his sister-in-law's celebrity as a bit of an albatross around his neck, career-wise. Legend has it Vic Chestnutt wrote "Guilty By Association" about his friendship with REM's Michael Stipe. Chesnutt, who became a paraplegic after a car crash, is currently on tour with Cowboy Junkies. Joe Henry is on tour too, supporting his seventh album, "Trampoline," I caught up with him recently in Austin, Texas while the city was being invaded by musicians much less famous than his sister-in-law for the South By Southwest music conference.

JOE HENRY: I don't like musicians as a rule, so to be in the same town with so many of them kind of makes me all squirrely.

TABITHA SOREN: Why don't you like musicians?

HENRY: Oh, they're an unreliable sort.

SOREN: Yourself included?

HENRY: Well I can hardly exclude myself from the gang, I suppose.

MTV: Joe Henry had been writing and recording albums that have tickled many a critic's fancy for years, placed not unfairly in a category where the words "country" and "folk" are often employed. For his new album, "Trampoline," Henry enlisted Page Hamilton of Helmet, a band not usually known for it's heartland sensibilities. So, how does this (Helmet's music) reconcile with this (Henry's music)?

PAGE HAMILTON, Helmet: Having me play the Joe Henry album is about as far musically as people would think. But really, we're very, very compatible. I mean, we both have the same passion for...

HENRY: He's an incredible rhythm player. Great textures and great sounds. And what he doesn't get to do at Helmet so much, is just, be a ferocious rhythm guitar player.

MTV: Much of Henry's appeal lies in his talents at writing lyrics, an uncanny ability to use very specific words to tell a very specific story. While "Trampoline" isn't exactly a wordless wall of sound, this time around, much of his energy went toward the music.

HENRY: The songs were starting to feel a little claustrophobic to me, in retrospect. Just how, kind of... how tight the narrative started to become, and how if you didn't catch all the words, you missed a lot of the story. And I just kind of... the more I worked, and the more I listened to other, different kinds of music, I realized that you don't have to be so specific to create a mood and to tell a story.

MTV: Henry happens to be the brother-in-law of mega-diva Madonna, and Sean Penn got his directorial debut on one of Joe's videos. But as it turns out, Joe's been brushing against either fame or infamy most of his life.

SOREN: Tell me about your connection with Jeffrey Dahmer.

HENRY: We went to elementary school together from fourth grade through seventh grade, played in the Junior High School band together.

SOREN: Did you always know that one day you'd be reading about Jeffrey Dahmer in the paper?

HENRY: No, he wasn't... he was kind of a funny kid, but, like a lot of kids at that age, you're funny.

SOREN: So, was he picked on as a child? Is it your classmates' fault that he turned out the way he did?

HENRY: No. I mean, jeez, we all got picked on, but we didn't all turn into cannibals.

• Joe Henry