REVIEW: Billy Bragg and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue (Elektra)
- Daniel Aloi
In the 1930s and '40s, Woody Guthrie worked across the country, but his real work, as a voice for the disenfranchised, grew out of that. His experiences among small communities of migrant fieldworkers and hometown factory hands inspired thousands of songs, speaking out for children, the poor and and subversives. , and aimed at fighting fascism, economic oppression and jingoism - "This is a real angry song," Bruce Springsteen once said of "This Land is Your Land."
Huntington's chorea effectively ended Woody's rambling life and musical career in 1947, but for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, living with his family in a little Coney Island house, his mind and his pencil never stopped. He left behind volumes of song lyrics never set to music - which his daughter, Nora, discovered while compiling her father's papers for a 15,000-item archive of his writings.
Rather than relegating them directly to the Smithsonian and Library of Congress folk archives, to gather dust and the dry observations of scholars, Nora turned the lyrics over to Socialist and British folkie Billy Bragg, who in turn enlisted the Midwestern roots-rock band Wilco to help him set Woody's long-lost words to music. They convened in Dublin's Totally Wired Studios in January and recorded some 40 songs, 15 of which now belong to the world. The songs on "Mermaid Avenue" add up to 50 minutes of good fun, beauty and heartache, from the writer's most private thoughts to his most pointed political broadsides. The songs carry not only Woody's vision but that of the musicians, following as they do such Guthrie acolytes as Bob Dylan, Springsteen and Phil Ochs.
Bragg is as qualified as anyone to sing Guthrie's songs, and Wilco, one of the finest American bands of the day, has equal billing. With Bragg and Jeff Tweedy (plus special guest Natalie Merchant) each taking lead vocals throughout the album, they have realized Nora Guthrie's intention to give Woody's words a musical life, no more and no less.
The first three songs hook the listener, and shatter any fears of contemporary artists tampering with a cultural icon's work.
In "Walt Whitman's Niece," a stomping beat and police whistles accompany Bragg's proud telling of a bawdy story (about a night on the town "with a seaman friend of mine"). He's answered on every line by a spirited Wilco chorus's disclaiming double-entendres ("I'm not sayin' which seaman") about the night before ("or the night before that"/"I won't say which night") sung as if they're gathered at a tavern, the tale growing with drunken bravado. Then comes Tweedy's choice, a beautiful, uptempo reading of the love song
"California Stars" - that could be an unofficial state anthem. Bragg does well by "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key," a wistful daydream drawn from Guthrie's Oklahoma childhood, with harmonies by Merchant. She then has a solo turn with the sweetly sad "Birds and Ships," wondering "where can my lonesome lover be?" Then Tweedy rips into "Hoodoo Voodoo," and we're off again with same sense of fun the album begins with.
Yes, there are socialist, and socially conscious songs here - "Eisler on the Go," done in Bragg's own downcast folk style, has Guthrie empathizing with a friend called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. "I guess I Planted" is a union anthem, a rallying cry livened up by Wilco's country-rock arrangement.
And in "Christ for President" Tweedy and Wilco make Woody's case against politicians and for Jesus ("the Carpenter") as the ultimate working man's hero; with the populist lyrics set to a jug-band stomp.
The album is cohesive, although it incorporates both personal and political ideas, sad songs and silly ones - the brilliance of the principals is the glue.
From the songs chosen, you can arrive at a few observations about Guthrie's psyche, and what a complicated, evolved man he was:
> Woody was a Christian ("Christ for President") whose humanism was his union card, more than his legend as a populist rabble-rouser would indicate (although he does relate to Robin Hood, in Bragg's closing "Unwelcome Guest").
> Woody was full of lust ("Walt Whitman's Niece" and "Ingrid Bergman," by Bragg solo, a sexual fantasy in which Guthrie imagines making love to the actress on the slope of a dormant volcano, her beauty awakening the fire inside the cold rock).
> Woody was a feminist ("She Came Along to Me," a melodic, sweeping piece of Bragg-Wilco folk-rock).
> Woody was a romantic (not only "Birds and Ships" and "Ingrid Bergman," but the gorgeous "One by One," "California Stars," "At My Window Sad and Lonely" and "Hesitating Beauty" -- all sung by Tweedy; they could have been on either Wilco album).
> Woody was a loon ("Hoodoo Voodoo," one of several nonsense songs he apparently wrote for his children; Tweedy and Wilco give it an intensely crazed carnival-band treatment).
Wilco member Jay Bennett's piano is one of this elegant album's most tasteful elements, and his slide and steel guitar lend a faraway, dreamy quality to Tweedy's singing of "One by One" and "California Stars." Ken Coomer's drumming and John Stirratt's bass pace these slower, moodier songs and they drive the real rave-ups as well.
"Mermaid Avenue" is more than a mere tribute, it's a collaborative and inventive interpretation of Woody Guthrie's unheard source material. And for its heart, it's also one of the best albums of the decade, if not the latter half of the century. But it deserves more than year-end Top 10 lists -- it needs to be heard by everyone. (I recommend buying copies to donate to public libraries.)
As mentioned before, more than another album's worth of songs is already recorded, so there may -- should -- be a followup.
Although they did not mount a full-fledged joint tour, Bragg and Wilco have already brought some of these songs to audiences, performing together at Guinness Fleadh dates (as one another's guests) and at the recent WOMAD festival in Seattle. Wilco is currently finishing up its third album in Austin between these selected dates, and Bragg has been touring with his own band as well.
For more background, a good place to start online is Wilco's site at http://www.wilcoweb.com; with a photo essay on the sessions and links to two Guthrie sites, Bragg's site and Elektra's artist information pages.
TRACK LISTING: (all lyrics by Woody Guthrie; performers noted) Walt Whitman's Niece (Bragg/Wilco), California Stars (Tweedy / Wilco), Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key (Bragg/Wilco/Merchant), Birds and Ships (Merchant/Wilco), Hoodoo Voodoo (Tweedy/Wilco), She Came Along To Me (Bragg/Wilco), At My Window Sad and Lonely (Tweedy / Wilco), Ingrid Bergman (Bragg), Christ for President (Tweedy/Wilco), I Guess I Planted (Bragg/Wilco), One By One (Tweedy/Bennett), Eisler On The Go (Bragg/Wilco)), Hesitating Beauty (Tweedy/Wilco), Another Man's Done Gone (Tweedy/Wilco), The Unwelcome Guest (Bragg/Wilco)
