Billy Bragg and Wilco’s celebrated Mermaid Avenue project is being revisited in an expanded new collection.
Due on December 11 via Craft Recordings, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions brings together all three instalments of the series alongside 16 previously unreleased recordings, including alternate takes, demos and live performances drawn from the original sessions.
The collection will be available as a 7LP + 7″ vinyl box set, a 4CD edition and digitally. Among the newly unveiled material is “Aginst Th’ Law (Alternate Version)”, available now, while the vinyl box also includes a single-sided 7″ featuring a recently discovered 1951 home recording of Woody Guthrie performing “Hesitating Beauty”.
Originally released between 1998 and 2012, the Mermaid Avenue albums found Bragg and Wilco setting music to previously unrecorded lyrics from Guthrie’s archive, producing songs including “California Stars”, “Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key”, “Airline To Heaven”, “Remember The Mountain Bed” and “When The Roses Bloom Again”.
The new edition adds an entire disc of Alternates & Demos, featuring previously unheard versions of songs including “All You Fascists”, “She Came Along To Me”, “I Guess I Planted” and “Aginst Th’ Law”, as well as demos of “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again”, “Hot Rod Hotel”, “Birds And Ships” and “The Unwelcome Guest”.
Both the vinyl and CD editions feature new liner notes.
Reflecting on the project, Bragg said: “It’s been over thirty years since Nora first asked me to look at some unpublished lyrics of her father’s. I had no idea then that the project that she, I and Wilco undertook would lead to a complete reassessment of the legacy of Woody Guthrie.”
The announcement follows a reunion performance at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival earlier this year, where Bragg, Wilco, Nora Guthrie and special guests revisited material from across the Mermaid Avenue catalogue.
You can pre-order here and the tracklisting is:
Disc 1: Mermaid Avenue
Walt Whitman’s Niece
California Stars
Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key
Birds And Ships
Hoodoo Voodoo
She Came Along To Me
At My Window Sad And Lonely
Ingrid Bergman
Christ For President
I Guess I Planted
One By One
Eisler On The Go
Hesitating Beauty
Another Man’s Done Gone
The Unwelcome Guest
Disc 2: Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
Airline To Heaven
My Flying Saucer
Feed Of Man
Hot Rod Hotel
I Was Born
Secret Of The Sea
Stetson Kennedy
Remember The Mountain Bed
Blood Of The Lamb
Aginst Th’ Law
All You Fascists
Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
Meanest Man
Black Wind Blowing
Someday Some Morning Sometime
Disc 3: Mermaid Avenue Vol. III
Bugeye Jim
When The Roses Bloom Again
Gotta Work
My Thirty Thousand
Ought To Be Satisfied Now
Listening To The Wind That Blows
Go Down To The Water
Chain Of Broken Hearts
Jailcell Blues
Don’t You Marry
Give Me A Nail
The Jolly Banker
Union Prayer
Be Kind To The Boy On The Road
Ain’ta Gonna Grieve
Tea Bag Blues
I’m Out To Get
Disc 4: Alternates & Demos
California Stars (Live)
Aginst Th’ Law (Alternate Version)*
All You Fascists (Alternate Version)*
I Guess I Planted (Alternate Version)*
She Came Along To Me (Alternate Version)*
Hesitating Beauty (Solo Version)*
Joe DiMaggio Done It Again (Demo)*
Psalm (Demo)*
Hot Rod Hotel (Demo)*
Christ For President (Solo Version)*
Give Me A Nail (Demo)*
Long & Hard (Demo)*
I Was Born (Demo)*
At My Window Sad And Lonely (Solo Version)
Birds And Ships (Demo)*
The Unwelcome Guest (Demo)*
Airline To Heaven (Solo Version)*
Hesitating Beauty (Woody’s Home Tape)*
Previously unreleased.