MERMAID AVENUE is a collection of previously unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics exhumed from the Woody Guthrie Archives and set to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco at the invitation of Guthrie’s daughter Nora.

Woody Guthrie’s gift to the world of music cannot be overstated. His songwriting helped to define folk music as we know it, as an instrument not only of musical creation, but of social change. Among those troubadours who carry on his tradition, England’s Billy Bragg stands proud, for his musical talent and his social awareness alike. In 1995, Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, approached Bragg to set to music some of the hundreds of songs that the legend had left unfinished. The result, MERMAID AVENUE, recorded by Bragg with Chicago band Wilco, is equal parts tribute and collaboration.

Joined by guest stars such as Natalie Merchant, slide guitarist Corey Harris, and violinist Eliza Carthy, Bragg more than does justice to the Guthrie legacy. From the rollicking opener, “Walt Whitman’s Niece” to dreamy double-tracking of “She Came Along To Me,” Bragg’s gift for matching melody and lyric highlights the universality of Guthrie’s music. Merchant’s fragile vocal work on “Birds And Ships” is a thing of sublime beauty, while Jeff Tweedy’s plaintive, rough timbre lends a particularly heart-rending quality to such tracks as “At My Window Sad And Lonely” and “Hoodoo Voodoo.”

MERMAID AVENUE was nominated for a 1999 Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Tracklisting
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. Unwelcome Guest

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.65) – Included in Rolling Stone’s “Essential Recordings of the 90’s.”

Spin (1/99, p.91) – Ranked #8 on Spin’s list of “Top 20 Albums of ‘98.”

Spin (9/98, p.184) – 8 (out of 10) – “…The combination feels nostalgic and contemporary at once, like a good rabble-rousing speech–or a snatch of Americana suddenly recalled years after you thought it’d passed forever from memory.”

Entertainment Weekly (9/4/98, p.84) – “…Bragg and the otherwise callow Wilco make the many moods of Woody spring to life with boozy, woozy roughhouse folk-rock. It may feel like school, but at least the classroom’s rollicking.” – Rating: B+

CMJ (1/11/99, p.3) – “…The varied arrangements uncover Guthrie’s knack for evoking many moods with simple words, making for one of the year’s most memorable and inspired albums…”