"tissue paper, onionskin, gift-wrap, napkins, concert programs, and even place mats"-scraps of ballads, union songs, and protest hymns for the next generation to sing. Guthrie's prolific posthumous catalog has meant that, at the invitation of his daughter and archivist, Nora Guthrie, contemporary musicians like Billy Bragg & Wilco, Del McCoury, the Klezmatics, and the Dropkick Murphys have tried on Guthrie's unsung lyrics over the years to find that his messages of radical humanism still fit perfectly.
Wilco and Billy Bragg have announced they will perform their collaborative 1998 and 2000 Mermaid Avenue albums in full for the first time at Wilco's own Solid Sound festival on Friday, June 26th. The "Mermaid Avenue Live" performance - featuring Wilco and Bragg's recordings set to the unpublished lyrics of Woody Guthrie - will open the festival, which is set to take place at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, from June 26th to June 28th, 2026. Three-day passes are available here.