Pros: Old and new come together in the best of folk and the best of alt-country
Cons: The music flies a little too low under the radar for mainstream attention
The Bottom Line: Sometimes the past still has a lot to offer us, and Bragg and Wilco show us with these new songs from the lost archives of Woodie Guthrie.
DrFaustus's Full Review: Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg/Wilco
Some albums come to us with a minimum of fuss and fanfare. It's the same old story. Artist writes songs. Artists records songs. Album comes out. It's the same way things have been done for decades, and it happens dozens of times each week.
Sometimes, though, an album brings some baggage along through the creative process, helping it to stand out from the boundless mass of albums that come out each year. Some examples that spring to mind are Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which the group was forced to buy back from a less than receptive record label and to release on their own, and Paul Pena's New Train, an album that sat unreleased for twenty years but found favor with other artists who covered songs from it such as Jet Airtliner and Gonna Move. Oftentimes these albums with interesting and unusual histories involve music that was somehow lost or missing in action for a period of time, and Mermaid Avenue, the album in question here, is no exception.
Mermaid Avenue, one of the most unusual collaborative efforts I've seen, brings together the work of British folkie Billy Bragg and alt-country rockers Wilco with American folk music pioneer Woodie Guthrie. Even if you don't think you know any of Guthrie's work, you do. He put together hundred of folk and protest songs back in the thirties, forties, and fifties, the best known of which is This Land Is Your Land, and if you say you don't know almost all the words to that one, you're lying. Even though his prominence faded away as his health deteriorated in the decade before his death in 1967, but his importance remained. Echoes of Guthrie are clearly audible in the music of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and countless others to this day.
Since Mermaid Avenue is a collection of new material, the big question is, how did Guthrie, who died more than four decades ago, end up collaborating on songs with Billy Bragg and Wilco, artists who didn't rise to prominence until the eighties and nineties? Well, after Guthrie stopped recording due to health issues, he still had a drive to create music. In his Brooklyn apartment on Mermaid Avenue, he continued to write lyrics for new songs. Well over one thousand of them, as it turns out. He never wrote any music for them, though, no one besides a few family members and close friends ever saw the words, even after his death. We skip ahead a few decades to the mid nineties. Guthrie's daughter Nora, the caretaker for the Woodie Guthrie archives decided it was time that someone did something with these unused lyrics. It was her decision to have Billy Bragg finally write tunes for the words her father had left behind. Bragg then brought Wilco into the project, and together they created the musical side of the collaboration that spans more than an entire generation.
So we've got the interesting background story to give the album some character, but none of it is worth anything if the songs aren't any good. Fortunately for us, Bragg and the members of Wilco have chosen some top-notch lyrics and have written excellent music to back them up. In many ways, the songs have an authentic, old-timey feel that mirrors the original recordings that Guthrie himself made, but there are also clear undertones of modern -day folk and alt-country music, making Mermaid Avenue a true collaborative effort.
The album opens with Walt Whitman's Niece, a loud, raucous number that sounds like something a group of longtime musician friends might get together and improvise on a Saturday night in some rural community. It has the kind of communal, sing-along feel that Guthrie would have loved, and incorporates a few suggestive lines into the lyrics with a wink and a smile. Other songs that fall into this free-spirited, communal sing-along style include Christ for President, a lighthearted piece of social and political commentary, and I Guess I Planted, a song that champions the unions and the working man, just as Guthrie did for so much of his life, and also happens to remind me a lot of John Lennon's Instant Karma in its musical feel.
Other songs stick to the more stereotypical folk music characteristics. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key is a wistful reminiscence of Guthrie's youth in Oklahoma set to minor key acoustic guitar and accordion with some melancholy backing vocals from Natalie Merchant. Ingrid Bergman performed solely by Billy Bragg with an acoustic guitar, features a bouncy folk beat as the lyrics pine over old actress that reveal a side to Guthrie that every male moviegoer can relate to. The song lyrics could easily have been updated for any of our modern actresses, but the sentiments could not possibly be improved upon. Eisler on the Go is gives us another simple arrangement, composed primarily of banjo and melodica, and has a sense of sadness and loss that will sound familiar to long time listeners of folk music.
A few odd moments here and there don't quite seem to fit in musically with the rest of the album, such as Hoodoo Voodoo, a set of nonsense lyrics originally written for Guthrie's children and given a roots-rock, Little Richard type feel in this recording, but these odd moments remain fun and enjoyable nevertheless. My personal favorites, though are the songs that tread tenuously close to the boarder between folk and pop. At Window Sad and Lonely, with it's driving drum line and tight harmonies, has all the earmarks of a hold-your-lighter-up pop anthem. One by One gives us lush orchestration and a dreamy, laid-back beat, with simply, yet profound lyrics about the passage of time.
The top honors, though, go to California Stars a restrained, mid-tempo number so perfect that it seems almost effortless. We've got acoustic guitar chords that pull us through the song and violins and pedal-steel counterpoints that rise to the surface when needed. The simple lyrics sing about nothing more than relaxing with a loved one, and can't help making any listener sit back and smile. It's a little romantic and a little reminiscent. It's part folk, part alt-country, and part pop. Few other songs that I've heard in recent years have come this close to musical perfection.
All together, the track listing reads as follows:
1. Walt Whitman's Niece
2. California Stars
3. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key
4. Birds and Ships
5. Hoodoo Voodoo
6. She Came along to Me
7. At My Window Sad and Lonely
8. Ingrid Bergman
9. Christ for President
10. I Guess I Planted
11. One by One
12. Eisler on the Go
13. Hesitating Beauty
14. Another Man's Done Gone
15. The Unwelcome Guest
Mermaid Avenue isn't exactly for everyone. Those looking for something to which they can rock out will be sorely disappointed. If you're in the mood for something more laid-back, or something that mixes the old with the new, get yourself a copy of this album. Not only is it one of the most unusual collaboration in recent years, it is also one of the finest.
Woodie Guthrie is truly one of the underappreciated pioneers of music and has had a profound influence on everything we hear today. Guthrie truly knew the world of music fifty years ago, and his words and thoughts still ring true today. I'll wrap things up here with a quote from Guthrie included in the liner notes for Mermaid Avenue that hasn't lost any of its impact over time:
The world is filled with people who are no longer needed
And who try to make slaves of all of us
And they have their music and we have ours
Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare
And without their musical and ideological miscarriages to compare our songs of freedom to, we'd not have any opposite to compare music with
And like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle, we'd never know it's speed, it's power.
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