Mermaid Avenue 2LP

The Mermaid Avenue sessions moved between Dublin, Chicago, and Boston as Billy Bragg and Wilco worked through lyric sheets Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora had kept since 1995 and finally handed to Bragg that year. Elektra pressed fifteen songs from those sessions, with Natalie Merchant stepping in for lead vocals on "Birds and Ships" and backing vocals on "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key." The record went on to a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album and a fourth-place finish in that year's Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll.