Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

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Music reviews of Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

Music Review: Millenium Guthrie
Rating: 5 Stars

"Mermaid II," of course, is Wilco's and Bragg's latest sojourn to daughter Nora Guthrie's vault, wherein contained are thousands of lyrics Woody had yet to set to music before Huntington's Disease sapped his strength and took his life. As with Mermaid I, the Wilco-Bragg collaboration is as much a product of their singular talents as it is a reinterpretation of our millennial heartaches and hopes through the prism of Guthrie's poetic, populist eye.

It's been said before, but it must be said again: no one is better suited to the task of making the Guthrie archives a living, breathing document than Wilco, who have practically invented a new American pop vernacular, and Bragg, the English folk-rocker who's wedded acoustic and electric beauty with unapologetically pro-worker lyrics.

While Guthrie's political, economic and moral sensibilities are fairly well chronicled, some of Volume II's most revelatory moments come from the intensely personal and spiritual side of the American folk legend. That's why Wilco lead man Jeff Tweedy, with his heartbreaking rasp of a voice and No Depression birth papers, is perfectly poised to reinterpret and refashion what Guthrie put down on paper.

Tweedy, Wilco and Bragg get Volume II off to a rollicking start with "Airline to Heaven," an inspirational hoedown that could have given Samuel Beckett reason to believe, with slide guitars, shakers, saws and handclaps lifting us into the clouds, gazing down on those grounded by hypocrisy and materialism.

Wilco and Bragg sustain that emotional intensity throughout Volume II, gliding remarkably from ballad to blues to nursery rhyme to hoedown. Check out the startling admonition of "Feed of Man," in which Guthrie/Tweedy implore us "to help in the feeding and the seed of man/And not in the bleeding and the end of man." Or the hushed beauty of recollected love in "Remember the Mountain Bed." Or the silly but inexplicably sensible "I Was Born," sung without mawkishness by Natalie Merchant. And if you want unalloyed, radio-friendly pop, try "Secrets of the Sea," another love song that enables Tweedy to reach back and capture the hooks that graced "California Stars" in Mermaid I.

While Volume II is by means an overt political statement, it flies gracefully as social commentary when needed. Bragg brings punkish intensity (not to mention "my union gun") to "All You Fascists," which follows on the heels of the buoyant "Against th' Law," in which New Orleans blues singer Corey Harris moans "I'm a low pay daddy singing th' high price blues" against a backdrop that includes Tweedy's mandolin and the marvelous Jay Bennet's banjo.

Bragg's most poignant turn comes with "Hot Rod Hotel," the story of a hotel porter and night clerk who votes with his feet when it comes time to choose between dignity and a lousy buck. "Hotrod Hotel" may be the most explicit embrace of why workers need to band together without even having to use the word "union," and its subtle power owes to Guthrie's gritty storytelling and Bragg/Wilco's faithful idea of how he'd want the music to sound.

It's almost pointless to compare the two volumes of Mermaid Avenues. Both are abundantly blessed with heartbreaking beauty, sly humor, goofy playfulness, apocalyptic visions and defiant flips of the middle finger at an America as economically and socially stratified in Y2K as it was when Guthrie first found dignity blowing alongside despair in the Dust Bowl.

The only thing more to say about Volume II is this: When, if not in God's name then Woody Guthrie's, will Billy Bragg and Wilco bring us Volume III?

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