Rating 4.5
Better Than a Tribute... And Only Gets Better With TimeThis is an unlikely collaboration: a brazenly political British folksinger, a difficult-to-categorize-band-from-the-Midwest, and a stack of lyrics from a long deceased singer. It's surprising how well it works: Bragg revives old "protest" ballads with utopian flare while Wilco resurrects love songs and Guthrie's jarring religious imagery. Woody Guthrie stretches both artists: Bragg's anger and self-righteousness is tempered by a dose of good humour while Wilco is unusually joyful and lucid. I nearly wore this CD out when I bought it a few years ago. The album works so well as a whole: the songs are varied stylistically and the lyrics are simple yet mature. I've recently re-discovered it, and it sounds fresher than anything I've bought since. I find that the Wilco tracks tend to stand out more with time (probably due to the dual songwriting contributions of Jay Bennett and Jeff Tweedy -- two is better than one). They breathe with an easiness that tends to elude the more didactic Bragg. One final note: Mermaid Avenue II is a worthwhile companion album. It may even be stronger in places, but be warned: it is not as consistently good. Not meant to BE Guthrie, but this still misses a trick This is a fine album. There are many memorable tunes, lyrics and ideas that have clearly sprung from the head of the enigmatic Billy Bragg. As an album of new music it works and therefore should rightly be as highly rated as it is.
My problems with this record are not the artists themselves, but rather that they were the ones chosen to undertake the project. Billy Bragg has always had tremendous unrealised promise as a writer and performer, mostly owing to the fact that he spends 90% of his time being rabidly left wing and not concentrating on writing. Wilco were, at this time, an up and coming band and not ready for something of this magnitude. I certainly disagree with allowing Jeff Tweedy free reign on many numbers, which I believe fell short more often than not, too often resembling middle of the road alt-country - which was perhaps the aim...
As for Bragg, whilst he certainly applied himself with vigour, as demonstrated by the terrific documentary 'Man In The Sand', he was not the man for the job.
To my mind, the venture cried out for Ramblin' Jack Elliott's input. Elliott even once recorded a version of 'At My Window' himself in the early seventies. Of course, with Jack at the helm, the album would have passed without a whisper and not been named in Amazon's 'Best of 1998.' Bob Dylan is another name that obviously presents itself, but Dylan would no doubt have made an electric-based record which would sound too much like everything else he's done in the last ten years.
Nonetheless, Nora Guthrie chose Billy over Jack Elliott and a host of others (Springsteen, Young, Wainwright, Van Zandt - Johnny Cash?) for the reason that Bragg is so overtly left wing. I don't believe Guthrie was as left wing as is widely thought, but perhaps Nora would know best.
Nonetheless, I think Bragg, Tweedy, Elliott and just about anyone else would appreciate Woody's wonderful quote, which was discovered in the making of the album and is a wonderful slogan for the project:
"I ain't necessarily a communist, but I been in the red all my life."4.5 Stars.... Masterful Mix of Guthrie Lyrics and New MusicNora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, thought it might be fun to have new music set to Woody's "lost songs" (lyrics to which Woody had music set in his head, but he never published the music). Billy Bragg and Wilco may make a curious, or at least not a very obvious, choice for the task, but boy, are they up for it!"Mermaid Avenue" (15 tracks, 49 min.) is a true collaboration between the artists. Some songs find Wilco's Jeff Tweedy at lead vocal, Bragg on others. Music on some tracks is written by Bragg, others by Tweedy/Bennett, yet others by Bragg/Wilco. While I'm a huge Wilco fan, I must admit that the Bragg-written songs are more coherent within the Guthrie legacy. Check out for example the sparse "Eisler On the Go", and "Another Man's Done Done" (with Tweedy on lead vocal). The best is "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" (with Natalie Merchant on back vocals). Natalie also sings lead on "Birds and Ships". (So you really shouldn't be surprised by Natalie's fab collection of folk tunes "The House Carpenter's Daugther", issued independently last year). In all, this is a terrific collection, which deservedly received a second volume as well. Recommended for fans of Billy Bragg, Wilco, Woddy Guthrie, and of course Bob Dylan. |
