Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue

In the 1990s, Nora Guthrie opened her father's archive to Billy Bragg and handed him something no one had heard: pages of lyrics Woody Guthrie had written but never recorded, with no melodies attached. Bragg brought in Wilco, and together they wrote new music for words that had sat silent for decades. The album took its name from the Coney Island street where the Guthrie family lived, and when it arrived in 1998 it changed how a generation heard Woody.

What they found in those pages was a funnier, stranger, and more romantic writer than the dust bowl legend suggested. "California Stars" became one of the most beloved songs in either act's catalog, a loping daydream that Wilco still plays most nights. "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" and "Walt Whitman's Niece" give Bragg room to grin, "Christ for President" keeps the politics sharp, and Natalie Merchant guests on two tracks, including the hushed "Birds and Ships."

The GRAMMY-nominated 15-track album launched a series that would run to three volumes, and it is widely regarded as a landmark of modern Americana, the record that proved an archive could sound alive.

This new Craft Recordings edition presents the complete album across four sides of 180-gram vinyl. It is the place to start with one of the great collaborations of its era.