Willing to forgive these guys for letting Natalie Merchant in here? Good, ’cause the second collaboration of British folkie-pop cornball Billy Bragg and Brian Wilson-Gram Parsons love-child band Wilco has put forth a remarkable album despite the inclusion of that sushi-voiced Romilar diva (re: we’re not supposed to like her ... don’t).
Like the initial 1998 pairing, Mermaid Avenue Volume 2 documents the featured players digging through reems of unrecorded lyrics from dead folkie Woody Guthrie, brainstorming melodies and background to weave the words through and putting everything together to do all of their fabled reputations justice.
Although Guthrie’s afterbirth songbook certainly deserves some derivation of awe, the real focal point of this release, and that of Volume 1, is the alive-and-kicking talent. It’s a gutsy move for Bragg and Wilco to show their brush strokes at this point in their careers; they’re not only showcasing their abilities as performers but also revealing their mental processes as editors — as if pointing to the spines protruding hideously from their skins and asking, “Sexy?”
Fuck yeah, it sure can be, especially when Wilco wizard Jeff Tweedy’s at the helm. Wilco’s 1999 release, Summer Teeth (objectivity warning: i’m partial to it; it made me shrink and still does), was a turning point of sorts, as Tweedy’s ballsy, emotional-hellride of a song cycle hinted at his true worth as a songwriter but raised new doubts about his abilities as a musician and true song-shaman seeing as though many moments rode Pet Sounds as if it were a porpoise parasite. So far as coattails go on Mermaid Avenue 2, though, we’ve all seen him hangin’ on — hell, that’s what this is all about.
With that out of the way, Tweedy shines like never before, and the few tracks with him on lead vocals steal the show from all involved. Although his vocal talents were hidden, and when not, questioned as “talents” at all, in Uncle Tupelo, the path to greatness he set for himself as a crooner on Summer Teeth reaches its destination on this release. For starters, he’s interpreting someone else’s words, so all any mystery surrounding his throat’s idiosyncracies as a means toward rectifying secret personal shit — no, ain’t here. On Mermaid 2, it’s practice he’s preaching with each nuanced throat crack and nasally whine, and hell if it ain’t twice as emotive as when he’s singin’ about his own life, not some dead guy’s. The ballad “Remember The Mountain Bed” sticks all of this in the front row, from his forced battles with “on-key” to the way he can end a phrase all guppy-mouthed and puffy to lay just a bit of real-country vulnerability to the proceedings, and it can be wearing a hat the size of Kansas and fuck if it blocked anyone’s view of anything else.
This is the price of admission in retribution, brothers and sisters. This is some shlub from Belleville finally realizing just what Hank and Johnny were onto that few others had.
Unfortunately, that magic doesn’t do smack for this CD’s guest vocalists, Merchant (“I Was Born”) and Corey Harris (“Against Th’ Law”). Reasons for their inclusions are obvious and admirable: “I Was Born” is delicate and childlike enough to be packaged with Pat the Bunny books while it appears as if the boys were looking for a Peter Tosh clone to lock up “Against Th’ Law.”
The performances, though, sabotage otherwise strong songs, and judging from the quality of the rest of the material, it sounds as if Bragg and Wilco just didn’t have the heart to tell their guests to leave early. Merchant is remarkably restrained, almost as if Bragg and Wilco rustled her bed, stuck a mic in her face and said, “Forget the dextromethorphan. Just sing this kids song, bitch!” Harris sounds all too chipper, VH1 and happy to be in protest of anything, and presumably most listeners would be all too happy to be impaled before track no. 10 comes around.
Arrangement-wise, selections also are hit or miss. Instead of taking each batch of lyrics and conveying their true spirit, it seems as if Bragg and Wilco chose a few manuscripts for their radio-friendly hook values and built around them as such. “Secret Of The Sea” is a damn-fine tune, and the Byrds-brand harmonies and SoCal jangle do it some justice, but it would be breathtaking if presented with the same Nick Drake patience and minimalist attitude as “I Was Born” or “Remember The Mountain Bed.” Perhaps someone should wake Chan Marshall and encourage her to take a stab at it.
Still, to their credits, Bragg and Wilco did a fabulous job diversifying these tunes, from the hoedown that kicks off the CD with “Airline To Heaven” to the dark, plaintive nature that ends it with “Someday Some Morning Sometime.”
- Tony Stasiek
