Your inviting words are very kind. You know, my first impressions often are misleading. I'll certainly give a listen to Mermaid Avenue, as well as to the BT outtakes, and I'd like to pop up when there's something on my mind.
June 18 release. The album peaked at #16 on July 5, 1996. It did have legs in 1997, after winning a Grammy and topping some critics polls in the winter, but radio listeners would’ve been well familiar with Beck’s new music in the Summer-Fall of ‘96, too. Just not so much to the taste of Midwestern fans of R.E.M., DMB, Pearl Jam, and Wilco, I guess. John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow, though—evidently they hit the spot.
Today we begin discussions on the next project: Mermaid Avenue. A note: there have been several threads on this forum asking for 'best fourth albums' from artists and I always see people nominating Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It's brilliant, of course, but I think Wilco's fourth album is Summerteeth. I have always considered the Mermaid Avenue albums (the first two, anyway) to be official 'canon' in their catalog and not side projects... Mermaid Avenue Released: June 23, 1998 Woody Guthrie was an American folk singer and songwriter who lived from 1912 until 1967. He was a major figure of 20th century music in the pre- rock 'n roll era who wrote works of both a deeply personal and deeply political nature--everything from comedy and children's songs to love songs to story songs to angry political calls to arms. He died of Huntington's Disease in the late '60s. His influence had several major ripples. Notably, his chief disciple was Bob Dylan who, as a massive young fan of Woody, included 'Song to Woody' as one of two original compositions on his debut album. A film, Bound for Glory (based on Woody's own book) was released in 1976 and won several Academy Awards. Woody's son Arlo also had a fairly successful career of his own, especially in the late '60s when he played Woodstock and released the perennial Thanksgiving classic 'Alice's Restaurant.' But Woody himself had been reduced to 'This Land is Your Land' and black and white pictures of a Dust Bowl balladeer with a guitar reading 'This machine kills fascists' by the late '90s. His daughter Nora found that Woody had some 3000 sets of lyrics that had never been published nor performed by Woody nor even set to music. She was moved and thrilled by what she found. She said, "The lyrics exposed him so absolutely it was like walking into a shower and finding him naked. Or like finding his little black book where every confession, every desire, every fantasy, every love, every pain, every hate, every hope poured out through purple and brown fountain pens. I winced. I cried. I was disgusted. I was proud. And I laughed. I had no idea." She saw that Woody was so much more than his popular image and the lyrics revealed a multi-faceted and complex human being. She got the idea to offer them to British songwriter Billy Bragg for him to set to music. It was Bragg that approached Wilco about joining the project. Jeff Tweedy was noncommittal but Jay Bennett was extremely enthusiastic. The band agreed to recording in Dublin. Jeff said, "It wasn't that appealing until it was made clear to me that we could go through the archives ourselves and pick out songs. I would never dismiss Woody Guthrie, because he's such a huge part of my musical life, but I definitely went into it with the idea that the stereotype that had been projected on him was not that appealing to me anymore. The left-leaning-hobo stereotype of Woody stood in contrast to what I hoped would be true: that Woody never would have marginalized himself like that. He would have preferred to reach a broad section of society than be packaged and sold to a tightly knit group of initiated people. I suspected there was this other Guthrie in there, from stuff I'd read about him, but I didn't know for sure until I saw the archive. After seeing some of those songs, my take on him was that he's more alive than ever. And that it would be a disservice to him to keep hammering home certain aspects of his social concerns, or whatever politics he had, as opposed to affirming the idiosyncrasies that made him a major American artist. I'm not into Woody the icon. I'm into Woody the freak weirdo." The recording sessions were not without their tensions (and Bragg was more interested in the political side of Guthrie, as evidenced by the lyrics he chose to write music for) but the result was a pair of superb albums released in 1998 and 2000 (and a third released in the Complete Sessions box). Mermaid Avenue was met with high praise in 1998 and nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album (it lost to Lucinda Williams' equally brilliant Car Wheels on a Gravel Road). Notoriously difficult to please Robert Christgau gave the album an A and wrote, "While the words are wonderful and unexpected...it's the music, especially Wilco's music, that transfigures the enterprise." For Rolling Stone, Greil Marcus wrote, "Hard or even impossible to place, those melodies, from just below the surface of the American pop tradition or from the true depths of the British folk tradition, float Guthrie’s screeds, stories and musings off into a realm where he is freed from his legend — into a realm where the people now singing his songs are freed from respect for it. The songs seemingly move of their own accord, and the record becomes unstable. The number that you know is the best piece here isn’t the one with the tune you can’t get out of your head — and which one that might be changes every other day." He gave it four stars. Marcus' Invisible Republic, about the recording of Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes, was an inspiration for both Tweedy and Bragg during recording. We will be covering every song on Mermaid Avenue, including those sung and composed by Bragg though I think I will pair up a few of them on days when the track in question does not feature any members of Wilco (Birds and Ships, Ingrid Bergman). We begin: Walt Whitman's Niece Jay Bennett: piano, clavinet, Farfisa organ, drums Billy Bragg: acoustic guitar, vocals Ken Coomer: drums, percussion John Stirratt: acoustic bass Jeff Tweedy: electric guitar, harmonica Wilco plus J.P. Parker: answering vocals I think the Bob Dylan influence on this opening track is palpable. Funny, because Dylan was influenced by Woody Guthrie and it all circles back down to Bragg and Wilco. This has always reminded me of 'Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" from Blonde on Blonde and some of the more rollicking numbers on The Basement Tapes. And that stuff was certainly around and 'in the air' as they recorded Mermaid Avenue. I'll start by saying that I absolutely love Mermaid Avenue. I like it even better than Being There. It is a truly special record for me and one I have played many, many times. It just has an amazing feeling to it. In addition to Woody Guthrie, it has always reminded me very strongly of one of my favorite American writers--John Steinbeck. It has that earthy, salty clean air feeling of a novel like Cannery Row, and a similar blend of politics, rapturous love of nature, and deep human empathy that made Steinbeck a genius. I'm not a Woody Guthrie fan particularly (I sang 'This Land is Your Land' in choir in second grade) nor a Billy Bragg fan, but I like them both so much on the Mermaid Avenue projects. True Americana, and Bragg is English! 'Walt Whitman's Niece' is a rousing opener and a fine time. I love the loose, almost drunken answering vocals which are impossible not to sing along with. I like Bragg's wry spoken word section. I like how it calls up the spirit of another great American (Whitman), the first of several real people mentioned in the lyrics throughout the volumes. I can't imagine anything else in the opening slot on this album. The band is all here and already Woody Guthrie is more fun than you probably thought he was.
Mermaid Avenue Preliminary Thoughts Wilco/Jeff Tweedy evolution continues to be apparent. As Ken Coomer said: 1) A.M. , Tweedy brought in finished songs, 2) On Being There, the songs were unfinished and he permitted band in-put in the shaping/finishing. Now on Mermaid (and this is no longer paraphrasing Coomer) 3) Tweedy accepts a songwriting partner. When Mermaid Avenue came out I didn’t think that deeply about it. My initial impression was: 1) skip the Billy Bragg stuff! 2) I love the Tweedy and Tweedy/Bennett tracks 3) I did notice that Jay Bennett was listed as a co-writer on a number of songs 4) I immediately made a cd of just the songs that had Jeff Tweedy on vocals. Didn’t know at the time, but do now: *Egan arrived in Dublin only to be asked (paraphrasing), “why are you here? The records done.” Ended up playing on some Bragg tunes for the record and then joined with Billy Bragg. He was in and out of Wilco before I knew he was even in it. In fact, he is not included or shown as a member of Wilco in the cd booklet (while there are photos of the other four). Many years later my friend (who I converted to Wilcodom) gave me the Man In the Sand documentary dvd. There’s more that I’ve learned/become aware of/formed an opinion about but I’ll wait for our song by song discussion. In terms of my playlist limitations (5 per album): I’m probably okay within that limitation.
I read that book. A great read. He’s one of my favorites, as well. I think I read everything (or close to it) he wrote back in the latter half of the 70s (same time I read the Guthrie book...and Kerouac, Snyder, etc)
Yes! It’s a great opener and I feel as you do. Well said. Edit: the spoken part reminds me of Long John Baldry.
Mermaid Avenue(s) features some of my very favorite Wilco music. The pressure implied by the "mission" of creating new Woody Guthrie music could've overwhelmed them, or pushed them to retreat into A.M / Uncle Tupelo / alt. country conservative territory, but what happened was quite the opposite : it seemed to give a carefree, spontaneous, experimental spirit to all involved, especially Wilco as a band, and to allow the Jeff T./Jay B. partnership to blossom. All of this material works perfectly as it is (the two main records are classics, the third one is a great "bonus"), but it's also magnificent when you just collect all the Wilco-led tracks from the original 1998/1999 sessions into a comprehensive 20 songs (more or less) playlist (which all of us have done at some point, right ?). I must admit I'm not a dedicated fan of Bragg's but most of his songs here are spirited and fun and endearing. And as an opener, Walt Whitman's Niece is just that : a joy to listen to.
I will say I didn’t find the project way out there or anything. The Byrds covered Guthrie and I always loved the song:
Mermaid Avenue Bragg and Wilco ended up in some kind of feud after this. That’s a shame because this is such a great collection of music that they collectively came up with here. My impression is that Bragg was specifically selected *because* of his tendency to write songs with sharply worded social commentary - which is definitely part of Guthrie’s legacy, and that Wilco was selected because of the folkier/fun side of their music. I could listen to all the music created at these sessions on infinite shuffle and repeat, so I’m very glad that all the work from this project was eventually released instead of just the initial album.
Ahh I missed the deadline. Okay I've been trying to keep up but I haven't even had time to read along now either. Alright here's the first disc of 'Being There'. I already posted the first few songs but then I just put everything into one bigger review for the disc. Being There (disc 1) Ahh, this is so much better. I had a rough time dealing with the debut. All the additions to their sound and the songwriting are vastly improving this band, and as the album I know the best right now, it definitely held its own as both a double album – the 2-CD album was a rare thing in the 90’s. The clean production and spacing amongst the instruments song to song is effective and with a lot of changeup that has the band pushing Wilco’s boundaries further apart, it’s a fun and rewarding experience. Jeff Tweedy sounds great and the addition of Jay Bennett really helps. It also always helps when you write more songs that needed so you can select the best. A colossal and bombastic opening of feedback, tribal drumming and menacing guitar are fired at us and I can picture a smoky, burning apocalypse and there’s there’s a big, scary guy in the shadows, strutting slowly towards us with amidst the madness. Then he strides into the light with the monstrous music peeling away to reveal a lone piano hanging out with a lone organ. A little vulnerable voice barely confident enough to commit to singing is adorable. The new listener to the album may have misunderstood when they first heard that thunder. The intimacy that suddenly appears is lovely and melodic, only to be ripped to shreds by more waves of feedback crashing in until Tweedy’s as angry as the music by the end. “I’d like to thank you for nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all,” he repeats as if he’s seeing this person for the final time. Love the Yardbirds’ “Heart Full Of Soul” reference. Great opener. “Far, Far Away” is what I expected from the band and it’s easier to tell the difference between the Wilco of A.M. and the Wilco here. Even melody and emotion stemming from it that Tweedy’s voice lights up. Like a long lost song from Harvest Moon, this is radiant and picturesque, the sun fading from the pink, first star of the night over the CTA riding through It only gets better on “Monday” – what an awesome song – I’ve never heard an alt rock band do the Stones better than this song. And just the general sense of classic rock the band has, it’s a great group for all those lost in a sea of grunge. It’s so clean with so much roll that was missing from a lot of the alt rock bands. The addition of horns is so well-executed. “Outta Mind” is just awesome and even better than “Monday” though it’s so close. This one stood out first and it was my favorite on the album but now “Monday” has caught up. The main riff isn’t the main focus but it accents the backing excellently. I love the rhythm guitar synching with the other instruments after the verse lines. The horns fly in like 1975 and they’re just right. I like the horn break tag of those guitar curly-q’s. My goodness, this would have been a megahit in 1975 – like a lost song from classic rock radio it goes down smooth and sweet like ice cream. If only Mondays were like ice cream. “Forget The Flowers” is a reminder of some of the Appalachian moments on the debut, but again there’s more confidence, nuance and melody stepping up Wilco’s game is the country rock arena. “Baby Hold On To Me” - @Lance LaSalle called it – the intro of “Red-Eyed And Blue” is close enough for discomfort. Has that old 1960’s style production and add in whistling, and this doesn’t feel like 1996 anymore. The tune is happier than the lyric, and the abrupt ending are weaker moments. “I Got You” power pops us back into reality with another great retro 1970’s hit single. This one sounds more like 1981 like they’re opening for Cheap Trick on the next tour and need a new song live for that crowd. The 1950’s piano is the outlier, hanging out with the rest of the driving rock. Back in those days, I loved songs that talked of the millennium and the end of the century, start of a new century. I still use a joke I used in the 1990’s about the ‘turn of the century’, so “I Got You” is great. It’s no James Brown “I Got You” but this is good in its own way. It helps that backing vocals are in focus on this because that chorus needs to be further solidified to get more of the hook out of it. @dirkster – I see you wrote something similar. I personally didn’t hear as many as I wanted or thought I’d hear. Silverchair had “Anthem Of The Year 2000” if you didn’t have that one. The backing vocals for “What’s The World Got In Store” is just what I meant by getting them just right to propel the hook and that’s in evidence here. Of course, it’s that delicate egg-shell vocal from Mr. Tweedy on the intro that pulls me in in the first place. It’s not as deep as it sounds, really just a great pop patron fitting in at the bar with the ranchers and rockers. “Hotel Arizona” reminds me I may be here just for the organ and Mellotron. This one’s just got organ but couple that with the hard rock that sneaks from behind before taking over control of the track, hidden behind the doo-doo-doo backing vocals. Whoa, this is way better than I remember. Love when the lead guitars coiling up like an Arizona snake, pooling and coiling on top of itself until its seated. I’m getting a whole lot of Jackson Browne on “Say You Miss Me” and it’s pretty and the piano’s lovely, but I’m not as into this particular melody. The presentation’s great but then the chorus doesn’t really latch on. Overall, this is a great disc of material but I like that they went for the double and that’s partially why I got the album. I figured if they were ambitious enough to try it, they must be worth trying again. “Misunderstood”, “Monday”, “Outta Site”, “Hotel Arizona” and “What’s The World Got In Store” are all terrific and the rest range from good to great. No weak tracks at all and that’s after I thought a bunch of weak ones found their way onto AM.
Sorry to keep going back to your post in piecemeal fashion. I keep thinking about things that are said/posted. I guess I’ve always been in the side project/where should I catalog these category. Until fairly recently when I’ve finally come around to placing them amongst their Wilco colleagues (so to speak). But...will I count vol. 1 as the 3rd album? I’ll have to think about it. Side thought: I suspect Wilco wouldn’t have any problem (philosophically) compiling all the all-Wilco tracks as an individual release. Billy Bragg, on the other hand, would (I suspect) never agree.
Mermaid Avenue Up front, I have to say that this is a wonderful album. There is nothing here that I can fault. And in the context of this discussion, it lends an interesting perspective to my Wilco fandom. It has only been in recent years that I realized this album was my first introduction to Wilco. When this album was released originally I was already a huge fan of Billy Bragg for about 15 years. All I knew about Wilco at the time was that they were connected to the alt-country movement, and that's about it. I preferred the Bragg songs for the most part at first, but I eventually came around to see the contributions of Tweedy and the band as worthy of recognition. This is a curious addition to the Wilco legacy. Overall, it represents a notable piece of work, and adds a certain level of credibility to that band's developing identity.
I love this album but keep in mind this is when I would be all-in if Wilco released an album that was comprised of nothing but the sound made by kitchen utensils, pot and pans etc. It is a curious pairing and on paper it seems natural. I think this album is a bridge album. Mermaid Avenue had to made before Summerteeth. That said, I think the Wilco songs on Mermaid Avenue would be more at home on Being There than they would on Summerteeth.
Definitely has to be Dan Hicks cause it's not The Band nor Jefferson Airplane from what you described. The Airplane only had a few country excursions - "A Song For All Seasons", "Good Shepherd", "The Farm". The Band never had anything where they play the same melody/sing the same refrain in different ways and no horse clops.
Interesting Kot book note (p.149): Bragg found himself confused a few times as Tweedy and Bennett juggled Summerteeth songs with Mermaid Avenue material. “They’d walk around playing things, and sometimes I’d join in, only to find they were doing their own stuff,” Bragg says.
Thoughts on the album art/booklet: I think is is a well thought out package. The cover is terrific, Billy Bragg’s liner notes are well stated and the booklet includes lyrics, date written (if known) and the names (and instruments played) of the personnel on each track. The earliest known lyric was written in 1936 with the latest (known) lyric written in 1949.
"Walt Whitman's Niece"- I love this album and this is the perfect song to introduce us to all of these songs. I loved singing and playing this on the guitar for friends and having people join in on the answering vocals. I don't listen to solo Billy Bragg albums, but after this album came out I tried to get into him. Nothing really stuck, but he shines on these songs with Wilco backing him up. I did get to see Billy live once, not long after these albums came out, and he had the great Ian McLagan (Small Faces/Faces) on organ. That was much more exciting to me than seeing Billy Bragg. A brilliant album and opening song. 5/5
For whatever reason, after buying and getting into "Being There" right from the get-go when it came out, and all their subsequent albums, each as they were released, Mermaid was the one album I skipped - I knew of it, but I guess because I thought of it as a "covers" album with another artist, I never considered it a real album. I was more familiar with the songs they played form it live. So this is their one album I came to pretty late, like when they put it out as the 3-volume set in 2012. And it is great, mostly, but it doesn't resonate with me as a true Wilco album as the rest of their records do.
After I saw Wilco for the first time on the A Ghost is Born tour and my casual interest exploded into major, major fandom, I had some "blank" spots in the catalog to explore. They played both "One by One" and "California Stars" that night (as well as "Remember the Mountain Bed, but that comes later) and I immediately began looking for those songs as they were some of the favorites from the show. I knew of Mermaid Avenue, from reading press releases/articles when it came out, but I really had no great knowledge of it and until the night of my first Wilco show I am pretty sure I'd never heard any of the songs from it. So it was one of the "going back" purchases I made after that show. It's been a pretty weekend here in SC and yesterday I sat out on the deck for a while giving this album a listen, knowing we are heading into it. I love it. As someone else posted above, it has some of my favorite Wilco songs on it too. All of the Wilco songs are wonderful and while I've never listened to much Billy Bragg beyond these records, his songs (and Natalie Merchant's contributions) are fantastic. "Walt Whitman's Niece" is a great way to start the record. It's a song that to me threatens to come off the rails at any moment (especially the "backing" vocals), but it never does. I always feel like there is a bit of "double entendre" going on with it as it progresses, but that could just be me making something out of nothing. Regardless its a song that always makes me smile whenever I hear it.
Walt Whitman's Niece is such a fun song and a great way to start this album. One thing I really love about this album is how Guthrie's lyrics provide the structure for some very unique-by-modern-standards song forms. This one, as far as I can tell, is just two refrains connected by a spoken word interlude. When have you ever heard that before? I love it. The whole album is a breath of fresh air in that regard.
Mermaid Avenue was a revelation to me when it appeared in 1998. Sure, I knew Woody Guthrie - and more than just via "This Land Is Your Land" and Bob Dylan. The 1988 various artists tribute album Folkways: A Vision Shared had featured modern covers of songs by both Guthrie and Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter) and is a very good album in its own right. I bought it when it was released, primarily due to the presence of two Bruce Springsteen songs - excellent covers of Guthrie's "Vigilante Man" and "I Ain't Got No Home" - and Bob Dylan's version of "Pretty Boy Floyd". Songs like "Do Re Mi" and "Deportee" had also been familiar to me for some time, the latter from the Byrds' excellent cover on their Ballad of Easy Rider album. Due to my passion for the intersection of music and history (especially the history of the American West, which I minored in at university), I was also very aware of Guthrie's wanderings throughout my home state of California and the overlap between much of his subject matter and that of John Steinbeck, my favorite writer. "Deportee", of course, brings those intersecting currents home - as does much of the material on the Mermaid Avenue albums. Still, as Mermaid Avenue quickly became apparent, I didn't really know Guthrie as a man, a husband, a father - and certainly not as a New Yorker! I think that was the sheer genius of this project. It unwrapped Woody, took him down off of the museum shelf, and humanized him. It's interesting that his daughter first reached out to Billy Bragg. I had been somewhat familiar with Bragg for several years, although I was never a big fan. I had one of his albums (Don't Try This At Home), which I liked but didn't love. Clearly he was heavily influenced by Woody, however, and he applied many of Guthrie's characteristics (humor, sarcasm, stridency) to his own brand of modern British folk music. It was an inspired choice, and it was equally inspired of Bragg to realize that these lyrics also needed an American voice. How he ultimately arrived at Wilco would be an interesting thing to explore, but that he did ended up being extremely fortuitous. Apparently Tweedy wasn't the easiest guy to work with at that time and, if I recall correctly, he seemed to vacillate between reverence and dismissiveness over the nature of the project, depending on which interviewer was asking him about it (and what sort of publication or media outlet the interviewer represented). It surprises me somewhat that it was Bennett who was the more initially enthusiastic one of the two about participating in this project, as I would have expected him to be more dismissive of Guthrie as "old stuff", while I would have thought Tweedy to be more awe-struck over the opportunity. It seems, however, that it was the opposite. It's hard for me to think of these songs as individual albums at this point because they were all essentially recorded in the same group of sessions. Also, it's quite clear that not all of the best songs were chosen for the initial 1998 album. Some of my favorites are on the second album, including my favorite Wilco song of them all. Other than wanting to present a roughly equal number of Bragg and Wilco-fronted songs on the album, it would be interested to know why some of the best songs were left off of the first Mermaid Avenue album as, I would assume, there was no guarantee at the time that a second volume would be forthcoming. Anyway, it will be good to hear and consider MA as an album again as I first heard it back in 1998, outside of the additional context presented by the later releases from these sessions.
