Exclusive: Joe Henry & The Producers Behind 'I'm Not There's Soundtrack

Turns out
Sonic Youth's
Lee Ranaldo wasn't the only one producing tracks for the
Bob Dylan biopic "
I'm Not There" soundtrack, but
with 34 tracks and over two dozen individual artists recording songs for the album, this would stand to reason (the complete tracklist is
here).
Joe Henry, the singer-songwriter who's generally (and condescendingly) noted as being
Madonna's brother-in-law produced a bunch of sessions for the album including "I'm Not There" Dylan actor
Marcus Carl Franklin's rendition of "When The Ship Comes In" (from
The Times They Are A-Changin')
Richie Havens'take on "Tombstone Blues" (from
Highway 61 Revisited),
Ramblin' Jack Elliot's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"cover,
Bob Forrest's "Moonshiner" (
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3) and
the pair of tracks recorded by ex
X singer-guitarist
John Doe.
"It's not hard to do something beautiful when the material's great," Henry
told the London Telegraph of producing the "I'm Not There" songs. "I've learned a tremendous amount producing others. When it's not your own persona that you are trying to bear aloft, you are free of the blinders of that kind of vanity, you see the way all kinds of things can work."
Rick Rubin protege
George Drakoulias worked with
Cat Power &
Bob Lanegan on their Dylan tracks.
John Agnello produced The Hold Steady track and co-produced the Sonic Youth's version of "I'm Not There."
Yo La Tengo stuck to who they know best - their long-time producer and collaborator
Roger Moutenot and former Dylan touring multi-instrumentalist
David Mansfield co-produced (with Antony) the
Antony & The Johnsons' adaptation of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (Antony recently said his rendering was "
slow and minor").
Calexico founder
Joey Burns produced the sessions for the songs that his eclectic group acted as backing band for:
Iron & Wine,
Willie Nelson,
My Morning Jacket's
Jim James,
Charlotte Gainsbourg and
Roger McGuinn.

As we previously reported, Ranaldo produced all the sessions with "
The Million Dollar Bashers." A supergroup
who we first revealed includes the aforementioned Ranaldo,
Bob Dylan bassist and live musical director
Tony Garnier,
Sonic Youth drummer
Steve Shelley, ex-
Television founder
Tom Verlaine, keyboardist
John Medeski (from
Martin, Medeski and Wood), guitarist
Smokey Hormel (onetime
Beck player, member of
Smokey & Miho) and
Wilco avante-guitarist
Nels Cline.
The Bashers back plenty of artists on the soundtrack including
Eddie Vedder, the
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's
Karen O,
Stephen Malkmus and Tom Verlaine.
You'll remember that a number of the artists on the soundtrack previously professed their love for Dylan by
performing his songs in November 2006 during a benefit for the Music For Youth Project.
And we've learned that while
Julianne Moore plays the older version of the
Joan Baez character in the film, Canadian actress
Fanny La Croix plays the younger version alongside Heath Ledger.