Minor miracles

Bragg and Wilco make good on Guthrie

by Richard C. Walls

On paper, the project that has become Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue (Elektra; in stores this Tuesday) might appear slightly intimidating, one of those archival undertakings you fear is meant to be, first and foremost, good for you. Bragg, one of the last unambiguous protest singers (and British, to boot), has gained access to several heretofore unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics and in tandem with American "alternative" country/folk/rock band Wilco has devised musical settings for them. It's a posthumous collaboration that links two disparate generations of musical dissidents, pays homage and carries the flame, and generally seems to promise the kind of good intentions that couldn't possibly be much fun. So the big news about this disc is that not only is it fun, it's a damn good time.

It's tempting to credit Wilco -- whose line-up comprises singer/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, guitarist Jay Bennett, bassist John Stirratt, and drummer Ken Coomer -- for much of the fun factor here, or at least for turning Bragg away from his starker inclinations. But some of the credit has to go to Guthrie. Which may come as a surprise to those who know him mainly as a composer of Americana anthems and hardy labor-movement sing-alongs. Guthrie's range is pretty wide here, and the raw agitprop is kept to a bare minimum. The tone ranges from bawdy to wistful, from the nonsensical ("Hoodoo Voodoo," written to entertain his children) to the satirical ("Christ for President").

"Christ for President" sounds pretty close to blasphemy but in fact it's a combination political dig and exaltation of the laboring classes. For Guthrie, Jesus is the prototypal working stiff; he makes it clear that if He would make an honest politician, that's because He was not merely the Messiah but also a carpenter. But if Christ was a swell guy, Guthrie was in trembling awe of Hanns Eisler, a famous German composer who was one of the first "unfriendly" witnesses to appear before HUAC, in 1947 -- the following year he was deported for his intractable adherence to democratic ideals (leave it to a foreigner). Guthrie's response to all this was "Eisler on the Go," which plaintively addresses two decidedly non-jingoistic aspects of political life, frustration and self-doubt.

The third person to be celebrated here (not counting the indirect homage of "Walt Whitman's Niece," which is the bawdy song, by the way) is actress Ingrid Bergman, who you'll remember left Hollywood and her husband to go live in sin with Italian director Roberto Rossellini in the late '40s; her actions created such a scandal that she was denounced on the Senate floor (as a "free-love cultist" among other goodies), which surely made Guthrie see her as a kindred spirit. Once Bergman and Rossellini set up house, they collaborated on a series of famously moody art films, the first of which was Stromboli. Guthrie rhapsodizes about what it would be like to film her against the dormant Italian volcano; he imagines how her melting beauty would reawaken the fire trapped inside the cold, hard stone.

You don't really need any background to appreciate the handful of melancholy songs here, each enhanced, one assumes, by the Bragg/Wilco treatment. "One by One" is simplicity itself as the singer -- Tweedy, who splits the honors with Bragg -- ticks off the particulars of his ebbing life ("One by one, my hopes are vanished in the clouds . . . my hair is turning gray . . . my dreams are fading fast away . . . I read your letters over . . . I lay them all away") against the sumptuously woeful backdrop of a country waltz. "Another Man Gone" has the forlorn singer (Tweedy again) with just a piano and a bit of rough-hewn poetry: "Maybe if I hadn't of seen so much hard feelings/I might not could have felt other people's/So when you think of me/If and when you do/Just say, well, another man's done gone."

Although Tweedy is the more engaging vocalist (by dint of being the more ragged, and therefore the more expressive), Bragg has some strong moments too, notably "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key," the bittersweet but unapologetic remembrances of an aging roué, and "She Came Along to Me," a bit of nascent feminism mixed with the old man-redeemed-by-the-love-of-a-good-woman routine and given a vintage Brit-rock treatment that Guthrie couldn't have imagined (which is just the point).

Bragg is joined by Natalie Merchant on "Minor Key," and she offers well-calculated support. She then gets the lead spot on "Birds and Ships," singing with a warmth not often found on her own solo projects. But then, this is an album of minor miracles -- or perhaps major surprises would be a more accurate description. Either way, it's an excellent collection of better-than-average songs, sui generis, a happy accident, one to be heard.