Billy Bragg, Wilco - Mermaid Avenue
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Free Music Notes for Mermaid Avenue
Free Music Review: The Present Marries the Past, Hope for the Future!
Hit: 5 Stars
For those of us who were young and passionate about social issues in the 50's, 60's or 70's, this fantastic album lets us know that the concerns of activists of the 20th century are alive and well in the 21st century.My own 20-something son turned me on to the music of Wilco, playing it during our Sunday dinners. "Is that...who are you listening to?" He smiled smugly as I tried to figure out who this was.
Dylan-like lyrics sung with by a Dylan-who-could-sing? Springsteen? Arlo Guthrie? Or someone entirely different? He grinned as he shared with me his favorite group (Wilco) and their best ever album.
I've listened to other Wilco albums - this one is absolutely the best to me - perhaps I'm more of a Bragg fan than I'd ever have known, or maybe its just the bleeding heart liberal still kicking within me. The messages are clear, the music consistently good. On his other albums, some songs take a bit of getting used to - the present mixes with the past in ways that are sometimes refreshing, uplifting, promising - sometimes grating (even my son says so, but he doesn't care!)
But this album rocks, in a folk music with message kind of way. This is because, of course, the lyrics are Woody Guthrie's, scribblings written on scraps of paper, about times that evidently haven't changed. Guthrie's daughter Nora gave permission for the words to be turned into song - British songwriter/musician Billie Bragg explains this in the amazon interview shown in the sidebar to your left.
"Every year we waste enough to feed the ones who starve," Tweedy shouts in Guthrie's "Christ for President," maybe the greatest campaign song ever written. In the remarkable "Unwelcome Guest," via Guthrie's words, Bragg adopts the persona of a rider on his way to rob a rich man who has earned his wealth by "stealing and lying and gambling," and he ends with this steely-eyed prediction:
"They'll take the money and spread it out equal / Just like the Bible and prophets suggest / But the men who go riding to help these poor workers / The rich will cut down like an unwelcome guest.'
"Has there ever been a vision of social justice so moral, or so clear about its price?" (read the whole article, its good!)
I liked this album because the music is wonderful to hear, the lyrics have thought and meaning still - a wedding of what was then, with what is still now, the album takes something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue - and turns it into a timely, cross-generational piece of art.
Free Music Review: A very succesful colaboration, a terrific album
Hit: 5 Stars
I used to work at a coffee shop in Boston, and our boss there played this so much, that despite loving Wilco, Billy Bragg, and Woody Guthrie, I grew to loathe this album, and to regard it as the official CD of brief-case carrying, latte-drinking yuppies everywhere--music for the sort of people who would never listen to Billy Bragg's edgier lyrics, Wilco's more rocking garage tracks, or Woody Guthrie's more opinionated beliefs. It became a symbol to me of how an album's audience can ruin the music itself.
Then, a few years passed. I moved, travelled, and by the time I got back to this album, I had left its stigmas aside, and when I heard it again, I realized it really is an amazing album.
Woody Guthrie's daughter got the alt.country/indie-rock band Wilco and the collectivist British singer Billy Bragg to take some of 1940s American folksinger Woody Guthrie's lyrics, come together, and put music to them. (Though Woody Guthrie had his own music for the song "Hoodoo Voodoo" and it appeared on his kids' album.) She also got Natalie Merchant to help a little, and the resulting collaboration was incredibly succesful.
Billy Bragg uses Woody's more political lyrics, and Wilco uses his more emotional and visual stuff.
"California Stars" is a lovely Wilco number calling up images of a late night sky hanging far away. "Birds And Ships" is a love song to a sailor, sung by Natalie Merchant. "Hoodoo Voodoo" is a herky-jerky stop-start heap that rolls along like a car about to fall apart. "Ingrid Bergman" is sung by Billy Bragg, and is loaded with sexual innuendo. "One By One" and "Another Man's Done Gone" are heartbreaking reflections on growing old and dying--done perfectly by Wilco--and "Hesitating Beauty" is full of life and happy.
All the songs are beauftiful, though some of Billy Bragg's deal with obsolete political things that you'd have to research to understand. The songs hang together beautifully, and--played in moderation, with the right people--will probably last forever.
Free Music Review: A Wonderful Work
Hit: 5 Stars
Is this a concept album or a tribue album? Is this an album of cover tunes, or original songs? Working with the Woody Guthrie archives, Billy Bragg and Wilco craft music to lyrics written by Woody Guthrie for which he never had an opportunity to write music. As you listen to these songs, sometimes beautiful, sometimes raucus, you can't help but to wonder if these artists have channeled Woody Guthrie's spirit correctly. Should "Walt Whitman's Niece" be the rock song that it is? Should "Ingrid Bergman" be this beautiful plea to the seemingly unattainable starlet, or should it be a sing-a-long? As the album progresses, you realize that correctness doesn't matter, and that whether they got it right or wrong, this album works. The songs are a wonderful representation of the variety of different types of songs heard from Woody Guthrie throughout his career, and the collaboration between the long gone Woody, the Billy Bragg and Wilco is inspired, energetic, creative and fun.
Thanks are due to Woody's daughter Nora and the Woody Guthrie archives for dreaming this project up, and for working with these musicians. Would this project have worked with a duo of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan? Of course, but that may have been a little too safe, and a little too expected. Thanks are due to Billy Bragg and Wilco for realizing that working together would result in a much better, and more diverse album than if they insisted on working alone. Thanks are due to Woody Guthrie, for even if his body would not allow him the strength to write music, his mind could still create these wonderful lyrics.
Free Music Review: Best of the year
Hit: 5 Stars
Nearly perfect! Every song is at least very good. A number are great. I would vote for "One by One", "Way over Yonder", and "Unwelcome Guest" as the greatest. "Way over Yonder" is somber, almost heart-breaking. You might not realize it after having read all these rave reviews from Amazon customers, but many music-lovers find the whole Bragg-Wilco project foolish and its result trash. Many a folk-Guthrie purist considers their work as utterly useless, a hack exercise in futility. They seem to think these lovely poems should have been left in the boxes they were stored in. Though you gotta wonder when you read 40 or so gushing comments, in this case, believe these ravers and enlist me with them. No album this year -- and I've heard all the top folk and alt-country candidates -- has grabbed me like this one. The range is impressive, moving from folk to country to rock easily and compellingly. But the lyrics, married to the simple, mantra-like arrangements, are what pull you in and thrill you. Bragg especially does some fine singing and guitar-playing. For those who find this music useless or hackneyed, I say let them listen to what they want. They have missed the boat. For me, I'm sticking with this memorable album and hoping for more. Lastly, I agree that Lucinda Williams put out a fine album this year, but Bragg-Wilco have out-done her by far. What a performance!Free Music Review: Certainly one of the finest releases of the year.
Hit: 5 Stars
This is an album unlike any other I've encountered. Wilco and Billy Bragg, comissioned by Woody Guthrie's daughter, set out to put unrecorded Guthrie lyrics to music. How does one reach into the past and set such a beloved and influental songwriter's words to music and not betray the content? The answer is, "With love and respect". What impresses me most about this album is the respect for lyrical content and tone with which this album is done while still mining Tweedy and Bragg's formidable arsenal of songwriting skills. From the haunting harmonies (a la Natalie Merchant, who sings a bittersweet track as well) of "Way Over Yonder In the Minor Key", to the rollicking "Green" era REM groove of, "Hoodoo Voodoo", Bragg and Wilco show why the No Depression movement is picking up steam and rising from the underground. This is living proof that Rock and Roll will never die. From the jug band stomp of "Jesus Christ for President" to drummer Ken Croomer's perfect Ringo Starr-esque laid back, spacious groove on, "One By One", this album is a gem from beginning to end. Look for these guys at Womad this summer--this material is sure to be a welcome addition to Mr. Gabriel's little travelling show.