1. Airline To Heaven
2. My Flying Saucer
3. Feed Of Man
4. Hot Rod Hotel
5. I Was Born
6. Secrets Of The Sea
7. Stetson Kennedy
8. Remember The Mountain Bed
9. Blood Of The Lamb
10. Against The Law
11. All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose
12. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
13. Meanest Man
14. Black Wind Blowing
15. Someday, Some Morning, Sometime
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Who knew that after the undeniable, sometimes shimmering, sometimes rustic magic
of Mermaid
Avenue that there was enough quality material for a second volume? By
setting their own music to Woody Guthrie's lyrics, Billy Bragg and Wilco once
again offer a 50-minute testament to Guthrie's long, dynamic shadow. This sophomore
meeting is as balanced between the up-tempo and the down-tempo as was the first
Mermaid. Jeff Tweedy's rasp gives all the Wilco-driven tunes a certain grit, and
the songs Bragg takes on have a luminescent, frank earnestness that intensifies
the delivery of Guthrie's lyrical social critiques. "Hot Rod Hotel," with Bragg
on the mic, melds the two approaches best, and "Secret of the Sea" is the CD's
poppiest centerpiece--aptly aimed at radio airplay like the first Mermaid's "California
Stars." Natalie Merchant's playful "I Was Born" is brief but sweet, just as bluesman
Corey Harris's "Against the Law" is an uplift, with his passionate vocal wail
mirroring the political gist of Guthrie's words. The moody closers "Black Wind
Blowing" and "Someday, Some Morning, Sometime" end Volume 2 with a pair of sweetly
sad gems, one a Bragg-sung folk blues that mourns the loss of cotton crops in
the American dustbowl era, the other a Tweedy-sung paean to lost love. At the
dawn of a new millennium, with labor and the distribution of wealth as pressing
historical issues that disrupt every International Monetary Fund and World Trade
Organization soiree, the time is right for Woody. --Andrew Bartlett
New
Age | Opera
& Vocal | Pop
| Rap
& Hip-Hop | R&B
/ Soul | Rock
| Soundtracks
| Miscellaneous
|