A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep.^[1][2] The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight.

Politics[link]

In politics, the term is more often applied in the passive sense to describe a geographic region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the former region might predict the eventual result in the latter. In a Westminster-style election, for example, a constituency, the control of which tends frequently to change, can mirror in its popular vote the result on a national scale.

Australia[link]

In Australian federal elections, the electoral division of Eden-Monaro in New South Wales has elected its Member of Parliament from the party which won government at every federal election since 1972. The Division of Robertson in NSW has voted for the party winning government at every federal election since 1983. The Division of Lindsay in NSW, and the Division of Makin in South Australia have elected their members of parliament from the party which won government in every Federal election since their creation in 1984. They are the only existing divisions in the country to have such a bellwether title. However in terms of nationwide two party preferred vote, Eden-Monaro, Lindsay, Robertson and Makin have bucked the bellwether trend in the past by voting Liberal at the 1998 federal election. The state of New South Wales could also be considered a bellwether, as the party which wins government has won the majority of House of Representatives seats in that state at every election since 1963. Unlike many bellwethers, these are cited by analysts solely for their record and are not usually attributed to demographic factors that reflect the median of Australia.

Canada[link]

In the Canadian province of Ontario, Sarnia-Lambton (and its predecessor ridings) have voted for the winning party in every federal election beginning with 1963. Also in Ontario, Peterborough has been won by the party who has won the most seats overall in provincial elections since 1977.

France[link]

Since the fifth republic president was elected by popular vote in 1965 up to 2012, five departments have always voted the chosen candidate in the second round: Ardeche, Calvados, Charente-Maritime, Indre-et-Loire and Loire. No region has done so.^[3]

Ireland[link]

Ireland has a proportional representation electoral system, in which politicians are elected by the single transferable vote. Bellwethers here can only be measured by the number of candidates from each side elected to Ireland's multiple-seat constituencies that elect an odd number of members. Meath and its successors, Meath East and Meath West, have elected a majority of Fianna Fáil TDs in years when Fianna Fáil formed the government, and a majority of Fine Gael and Labour TDs when those parties formed the government, since the 1981 general election.

New Zealand[link]

In New Zealand, there are three generally accepted bellwether electorates: Hamilton East and Hamilton West, both based around the city of Hamilton,^[4] and Northcote on Auckland's North Shore.^[5] Hamilton West and Northcote have only missed one election each since they were first contested in 1969 and 1996 respectively - the 1993 election for Hamilton West and the 2005 election for Northcote. Hamilton East, first contested in 1972, has missed three elections - 1993, 1999, and 2005.

Spain[link]

Since democracy was restored in 1977 up to 2011 elections, four provinces have always voted for the winning party (Álava, Teruel, Zaragoza and Huesca) as one Autonomous Community has done (Aragon).^[6]

Sweden[link]

According to Statistics Sweden, election results in Karlstad have been closest to the national results for three consecutive elections, a fact often highlighted by media through Gallup Polls showing voting intentions in the area.^[7][8]

United Kingdom[link]

United Kingdom constituencies have been subject to frequent review since the late 1960s, particularly those of the House of Commons. Few constituencies are unchanged from one review to another. Therefore, true bellwethers are rare. However, it is possible to match new constituencies to old ones according to the destination of the bulk of the old electorate.

In the United Kingdom, the Dartford constituency has reflected the overall result in every General Election since 1964 and the Basildon constituency has reflected every result since its creation in 1974. Gravesham and its predecessor Gravesend had a perfect record of voting for the winning party or the one with the largest share of the vote in every election from the First World War except for 2005, when they voted Conservative with Labour winning the election. Bristol North West is also considered something of a bellwether, with its voters having elected the candidate of the winning party in every election since October 1974, though it failed to do so on a number of occasions prior to this.

Luton South and its predecessors the Luton East and Luton constituencies have elected an MP from the winning party in each election since the 1951 general election until 2010.

Scottish Parliament[link]

In the 1999, 2003 and 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, the constituencies of Cunninghame North, Dundee West, Edinburgh East & Musselburgh, Fife Central, Glasgow Govan, Kilmarnock & Loudoun, Livingston, Stirling, Western Isles all elected an MSP from the party which won the plurality of seats in the election overall. Following boundary changes for the 2011 election, the successor constituencies to all the above seats maintained this trend.

United States[link]

States[link]

In the United States, Nevada has produced the same outcome as the national results in every presidential election beginning in 1912, except in 1976, thus voting for the winner 96.0% of the time. Ohio is the second closest with a match rate of 93.1%. Missouri, often referred to as the Missouri bellwether, was for many years the best match of the national results, but since 2008 is now third closest with a 92.6% match rate.

The American bellwether states (with respect to presidential elections) currently are:

• Nevada - 1 miss (1976) from 1912 on (96.0%, slightly "too Republican").
• Ohio - 2 misses (1944, 1960) from 1896 on (93.1%, slightly "too Republican"). Currently the longest perfect streak.
• Missouri - 2 misses (1956, 2008) from 1904 on (92.6%, "neutral").
• New Mexico - 2 misses (1976, 2000) from 1912 on (92%, "neutral"). The state of New Mexico voted for the winner of the popular vote in 2000.
• Florida - 2 misses (1960, 1992) from 1928 on (90.5%, slightly "too Republican").
• Tennessee - 2 misses (1960, 2008) from 1928 on (90.5%, slightly "too Republican").
• Delaware - 2 misses (2000, 2004) from 1952 on (86.7%, slightly "too Democratic"). The state of Delaware voted for the winner of the popular vote in 2000.

In addition, the Territory of Guam has had no misses from 1984 on (100.0%). Guam has no electoral college votes, but conducts a straw vote on local election day. Also of note, in every presidential election from 1992 through 2008, Iowa's popular vote margin was within 2.55 percentage points of the national popular vote result.^[9]

Counties[link]

American bellwether counties include:

• Vigo County, Indiana (county seat: Terre Haute) - 2 misses (1908, 1952) from 1892 on, perfect since 1956.^[10] From 1960 to 2004, Vigo County had been within 3 percent of the national presidential vote every election.^[11] In 2008, Vigo County again voted with the winner, but Obama's percentage of 57.3% was about 4.4% above Obama's national vote.^[12]

• Bexar County, Texas (county seat: San Antonio) - perfect since 1972.^{[citation needed]}

• Chautauqua County, New York (county seat: Mayville) - perfect since 1980, 2 misses since 1960.^[13]

A list of the top 50 American bellwether counties between 1980 and 2004 is available here.^[14]

Stock market[link]

In the stock market, a bellwether (barometer stock in the UK) is the stock of a company that is regarded as a leader in its given industry. The performance of the stock is said to reflect the performance of the industry in general. These stocks are used as barometers for the rest of the market. JPMorgan Chase is an example of a bellwether stock. As one of the major banks in the US, it sets the tone for the rest of the industry. JPMorgan Chase also has contracts with companies in other industries so its performance is reflected in other sectors of the market. Infosys is similarly a bellwether for Technology stocks in the Indian markets BSE and NSE.

Sociology[link]

In sociology, the term is applied in the active sense to a person or group of people who tend to create, influence or set trends.

Business[link]

Trends in expenditure in the UK advertising and marketing industry are monitored in the quarterly Bellwether Report, published by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).

See also[link]

• As Maine goes, so goes the nation
• Will it play in Peoria?
• Swing state
• Early adopter
• Peer-mediated instruction

References[link]

Look up bellwether in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Joe Henry
Background information
Birth name	Joseph Lee Henry
Origin	United States
Genres	Alt-Americana/Jazz
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1986–present
Labels	Profile, Mammoth, ANTI-
Associated acts	Loudon Wainwright III, The Jayhawks, T-Bone Burnett, and Madonna

Joe Henry (born December 2, 1960) is a three-time Grammy-winning^[1] singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Henry, "a modest-selling 'critic’s darling' with a reputation for pushing the envelope"^[2] writes "songs [that] don’t fit into an easily defined box"^[3], instead drawing influence from a wide array of music including folk, blues, jazz, rock, country, and alternative forms alike. He has released 12 full-length studio albums under his own name, and has produced dozens more records for others as well.

Career[link]

Early years[link]

Joe Henry was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, grew up in the Detroit, Michigan area and graduated from the University of Michigan. He moved to Brooklyn, NY in 1985, where he began playing in small clubs and recording music, releasing his first album "Talk of Heaven" in 1986. The album earned him a recording contract with A&M, which subsequently released "Murder of Crows" in 1989 and "Shuffletown" in 1990.^[4]

"Shuffletown," produced by T-Bone Burnett, was the first to represent a shift in musical direction, and included a group of mostly acoustic players recorded live, directly to two-track master tape. His sound veered toward what was then emerging as "alt country". Henry’s next two records, "Short Man's Room" (1992) and "Kindness of the World" (1993), shared members of the country-rock band the Jayhawks. These two albums were specifically written with the Jayhawks as backing band, as Joe was sharing a tour with them during the same period. The murder ballad "King's Highway," from "Short Man's Room," has been covered by Joan Baez.

Musical transition[link]

For his 1996 album Trampoline, his sixth LP, Henry hired guitarist Page Hamilton of Helmet, with a result that one reviewer called "idiosyncratic broadmindedness". [1]

Fuse (1999) continued Henry's experimentalism. “Recorded with help from producers Daniel Lanois and [T-Bone Burnett]], “Fuse” is an atmospheric marvel.”^[5] Ann Powers of the New York Times stated that “[with] “Fuse”, he has found the sound that completes his verbal approach.”^[6]

Early 2000s[link]

Scar, released in 2001, consisted mainly of jazz musicians (Marc Ribot, Brian Blade, and Brad Mehldau among others), and included an appearance by saxophonist Ornette Coleman on "Richard Pryor Addresses A Tearful Nation."

In “Scar”, according to Allmusic's Thom Jurek, "[Henry] has moved into a space that only he and Tom Waits inhabit in that they are songwriters who have created deep archetypal characters that are composites—metaphorical, allegorical, and 'real'—of the world around them and have created new sonic universes for them to both explore and express themselves in. Scar is a triumph not only for Henry—who has set a new watermark for himself—but for American popular music, which so desperately needed something else to make it sing again." [2]

2003's self-produced Tiny Voices, was his first on Epitaph's Anti label. Reviewer Jurek described the album as "the sound of Hemingway contemplating the Cuban Revolution with William Gaddis, the sound of Buddy DeFranco and Jimmy Giuffre trying to talk to Miles Davis about electric guitars in an abandoned yet fully furnished Tiki bar in Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles." [3]

In the early 2000s, Henry was also an inaugural member of the Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists.^[7]

The Garfield House[link]

Since the success of his first Grammy Winning production, Don't Give Up on Me by Solomon Burke, Henry has been spending more and more time producing records, in addition to his work as a solo artist (see discography at bottom of page). In 2006, Henry opened up a home studio, where the vast majority of his productions now take place. Since then, he has developed a close musical partnership with recording engineer Ryan Freeland and a particular group of Los Angeles-based musicians (including Jay Bellerose, Greg Leisz, David Piltch, Patrick Warren and Keefus Ciancia among others), with whom Henry works almost exclusively.^[8]

“Strange Weirdos” and “Knocked Up”[link]

In September 2006, Joe Henry and his longtime hero Loudon Wainwright III began composing the music for the Judd Apatow movie Knocked Up, one of the first undertakings in the new studio. Snippets of instrumentals were used as background score for the film, but the full versions of the songs make up Wainwright's 2007 Henry-produced album Strange Weirdos.

Henry’s Own Music[link]

Though Henry began to spend more time producing, he has still continued to regularly record and release records under his own name. In 2007, Henry released Civilians, the first of his own records produced at The Garfield House. In contrast to Henry's Tiny Voices, Civilians is “a rich, acoustic affair that returns us to Henry's rootsier sounds,”^[9] in part due to the absence of horns (which were present on his just previous (to Tiny Voices) recordings Scar and Fuse), and also notable contributions by Bill Frisell and Van Dyke Parks. The song "God Only Knows," the final track on the album, was used in a "TCM Remembers 2008" TV spot, a video memoriam of actors who have died in 2008.”^[10] Additionally, for a portion of Bonnie Raitt's 2012 album Slipstream which Henry produced, Raitt covered two of his songs from Civilians.

In 2009, Henry released his ninth solo record, Blood From Stars. On Blood From Stars, Henry incorporates an influx of orchestral blues, highlighted by the instrumentation of guitarist Marc Ribot, pianist Jason Moran and even his saxophonist son. Though the album focuses on developing the myriad faces of blues, Henry also adds speckles of jazz, rock and pop. And, as its title suggests, Blood From Stars is lined with a darkness that traces through the rugged history of American storytelling.”^[11]

In May 2011, Henry announced a new album for release on October 11 titled Reverie. Instrumentation-wise, it’s the simplest record Henry’s ever done: acoustic guitar, upright bass, upright piano, and drums.^[12] “When you listen to Reverie, especially on headphones, you can hear traffic in the background or a neighbor calling her dog. It's not always a pristine recording environment. Henry not only left the windows open at his basement studio, but also put microphones on them.”^[13]

Thoughts on Music[link]

When asked to elaborate on the concept behind Reverie, Henry offers: "‘It just occurred to me when I was writing songs one day that there's no such thing as silence,’ Henry says. ‘When you're working on a song, invariably someone rings the bell. Someone walks through the room. The song might recede into the fabric of life happening around it, but it doesn't fade to black politely. So I decided to emphasize that fact, because I think it's real. I don't think any real music ... I don't think any real living happens in a vacuum.’”^[14]

In a variety of interviews about his concept of songwriting, he shares: "‘I was very enamored with all of the songwriters who were writing in a narrative voice in character,’ Henry says. ‘I knew that Randy Newman was not writing about himself, that Bob was not writing his own story. He was making up a character and following it.’”^[15] "But there was this singer-songwriter environment, this post-Dylan fallout, of people who think that pages of your diary set to music are songs, and that the more `honest' songs are, the better they are. And that's the greatest misconception of American popular music: that if you're being honest, you're being entertaining."^[16] “It wasn't about how much of your life you were willing to expose — it was about how wild a character you were willing to inhabit."^[17]

Personal life[link]

Henry is married, since 1987, to Melanie Ciccone, sister of Madonna. He has two children, Levon and Lulu. [4] Henry's wife talked him into letting her send Madonna a demo of his song "Stop", which was reworked and recorded as "Don't Tell Me" (from Madonna's 2000 album Music). Henry's own tango-tinged version of the song appeared on Scar and was featured in an episode of "The Sopranos". Henry and his sister-in-law recorded a duet, "Guilty By Association", on the charity album Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, and collaborated on the songs "Jump" on Confessions on a Dance Floor, "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" on Hard Candy, and "Falling Free" on MDNA.

Currently, in addition to recording, writing songs, performing, and producing, Henry is working on a biography of Richard Pryor along with his brother Dave Henry, who is a writer based in Louisville, Kentucky. Joe also maintains an online journal through his website (http://www.joehenrylovesyoumadly.com/category/journal/) through which he publishes essays on a semi-regular basis.

Discography[link]

External links[link]

• Joe Henry official website
• Review of Joe Henry's Civilians album
• Review of Civilians album from Variety
• Joe Henry on the Internet Movie Database
• [5] Interview with Joe Henry
• Interview, HitQuarters Jul 2006
• God Is In the Details: A Blog About Joe Henry
• Novelist David Gates on Joe Henry

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joe Henry