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Artist
Billy Bragg & Wilco
12+ albums
Alt-countryfolkamericanaindierock
about
The British singer Billy Bragg and the American band Wilco collaborated to put to music and perform previously unheard lyrics written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. The project was organized by Guthrie's daughter, Nora Guthrie. The ensuing album "Mermaid Avenue" was released on the Elektra Records label on June 23, 1998. A second volume of recordings, "Mermaid Avenue Vol. II", followed in 2000. The projects are named after a song "Mermaid's Avenue" written by Guthrie. This was also the street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York on which Guthrie lived. According to Bob Dylan's autobiographical Chronicles, Woody Guthrie gave his unpublished songs to Dylan but Bob was unable to get them from Guthrie's family (he tells a story about a reluctant babysitter). Nora Guthrie's liner notes in Mermaid Avenue indicate that it was her intention that the songs be given to a new generation of musicians who would be able to make the songs relevant to a younger generation. She therefore contacted singer-songwriter Billy Bragg in spring 1995 about recording some unreleased songs by her father, folk singer Woody Guthrie. Most of the songs were written late in Guthrie's life when he was unable to record due to the motor impairments of Huntington's disease. By the 1990s, Woody Guthrie had become a "relic" to the MTV generation, and Nora sought to establish a different legacy for the musician. To Nora, Bragg was "the only singer I knew taking on the same issues as Woody." Bragg was conce
