'Mermaid Avenue'

This is a really odd album when you think about it.

On one hand you have Billy Bragg, kind of an outsider, electrified folk singer with a grudge.

Then you have Wilco, pre-"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and still years away from peaking with their current line-up.

All singing unknown Woody Guthrie songs.

Does Bragg call up Jeff Tweedy and propose the idea? Are Wilco big Guthrie-folkie fans?

Is Guthrie really one that would like his songs turned into country-rock tunes?

It's not made without the Guthrie songs (obviously), so it's a collaboration where the music is far more important than the people playing it (which never happens).