BILLY BRAGG & WILCO’S LANDMARK MERMAID AVENUE PROJECT

RETURNS WITH EXPANDED THE COMPLETE SESSIONS

New 7-LP + 7″ and 4-CD box sets, plus an expanded digital edition, unite all three volumes

of the acclaimed collaboration built around previously unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics

Plus 16 previously unreleased recordings—including rare demos, alternate versions and live performances—plus a newly unearthed Woody Guthrie home recording

Mermaid Avenue, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II and Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

 also available individually on 180-gram vinyl

Arriving December 11 via Craft Recordings

Click here to visit the Online Media Kit

Click here to pre-order/pre-save the collection

LOS ANGELES, CA (October 8, 2026) — Nearly three decades after Billy Bragg and Wilco first came together to give voice to a remarkable collection of previously unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics, their landmark Mermaid Avenueproject returns in its most expansive form yet. On December 11, Craft Recordings will release Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, bringing together all three volumes of the acclaimed series alongside a wealth of rare and previously unreleased recordings.

Available as a 7-LP + 7″ box set, 4-CD box set and digitally, The Complete Sessions adds 16 previously unreleased recordings from the original sessions, including rare demos, alternate versions and live recordings. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl, the 7-LP set is housed in a deluxe slipcase with a booklet and includes a single-sided 7″ featuring a newly discovered 1951 home recording of Guthrie performing “Hesitating Beauty,” while the 4-CD set is presented in a 5.5-inch portfolio book. Both box sets feature new liner notes by acclaimed author and journalist Bob Mehr.

Available to pre-order and pre-save now, the collection is previewed by “Aginst Th’ Law (Alternate Version),” a previously unreleased recording from the sessions, alongside perennial favorite “California Stars” both streaming now.

The three original volumes—Mermaid Avenue, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II and Mermaid Avenue Vol. III—will also be available individually as 2-LP sets on 180-gram vinyl. Limited-edition pressings include all three volumes on Eco White vinyl at independent record stores and Mermaid Avenue on Green vinyl at Barnes & Noble, while CraftRecordings.com will exclusively offer Mermaid Avenue on Red, Vol. II on Yellow and Vol. III on Salmon Pink.

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Mermaid Avenue began with an extraordinary invitation. Nora Guthrie, daughter of legendary American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, had discovered thousands of unpublished lyrics that revealed a far more complex and multifaceted man beyond the familiar image of the Dust Bowl balladeer. Determined to bring that fuller portrait of her father into the world through music, she turned to Billy Bragg, the influential British singer-songwriter whose folk-punk songs had long married the personal and political. As Nora recalls in Mehr’s new liner notes, she saw in Bragg a “revolutionary you could dance to, ”an artist who could meet Woody “eye-to-eye,” as a “comrade, not an icon.” Bragg later brought in Wilco, the Chicago band led by Jeff Tweedy, then emerging as one of American alternative rock’s most adventurous voices, as full collaborators. Together, they would create an entirely new body of music around Guthrie’s words.

“It’s been over thirty years since Nora first asked me to look at some unpublished lyrics of her father’s,” reflects Bragg. “I had no idea then that the project that she, I and Wilco undertook would lead to a complete reassessment of the legacy of Woody Guthrie.”

Diving in, Bragg and Wilco approached Guthrie’s words not as artifacts to preserve, but as material for new songs—bringing their own musical instincts and influences to the recordings. As Tweedy recalls, “It was an honor. I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but what greater honor could you give a songwriter than to co-write with Woody Guthrie? That was a real pinnacle of my life.”

For Nora, the project was an opportunity to challenge the narrow image of her father that had become embedded in popular culture and reveal the breadth of the writing she found in his archive. “We’re not in Oklahoma anymore, Toto, this is a different Woody,” Bragg recently told Relix, explaining the significance of choosing “Walt Whitman’s Niece” to open the original album. “From here on out, this is a different Woody.”

The collaboration proved remarkably prolific. What was intended as a week of pre-production in Chicago in December 1997 instead produced an album’s worth of material, before Bragg and Wilco reconvened for further sessions in Dublin. Over four weeks, they recorded close to 50 tracks, with Wilco’s spontaneous, first-take approach helping define the sessions. The resulting body of work would ultimately span all three Mermaid Avenue volumes and, now, the expanded archive presented on The Complete Sessions.

Released in 1998, the GRAMMY®-nominated Mermaid Avenue introduced songs including “California Stars,” “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key,” “Birds and Ships” and “Hesitating Beauty,” with Natalie Merchantguesting on two tracks. The project continued with Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000, drawing from the same remarkably productive original sessions and bringing another 15 Guthrie texts to life, including “Airline to Heaven,” “Remember the Mountain Bed,” “All You Fascists” and “Someday Some Morning Sometime.” More than a decade later, Mermaid Avenue Vol. III emerged in 2012 as part of the original Complete Sessions collection, gathering 17 further recordings from the Bragg/Wilco collaboration, including “When the Roses Bloom Again,” “Listening to the Wind That Blows” and “The Jolly Banker.” Now, all three volumes are brought together again as the foundation of this newly expanded edition.

The newly expanded Complete Sessions opens the archive further with a complete Alternatives & Demos disc previously unreleased alternate versions of “Aginst Th’ Law,” “All You Fascists,” “I Guess I Planted” and “She Came Along To Me,” alongside solo versions and demos of songs including “Hesitating Beauty,” “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again,” “Hot Rod Hotel,” “Birds And Ships” and “The Unwelcome Guest.” Also newly unearthed is Guthrie’s own 1951 home recording of “Hesitating Beauty,” bringing his voice directly into a collection devoted to the extraordinary afterlife of his unpublished words.

The collection also follows a long-awaited reunion this summer, when Bragg and Wilco came together at the band’s Solid Sound Festival for their first full-length concert devoted to Mermaid Avenue. Joined by Natalie Merchant, Nora Guthrie and members of the extended Guthrie family, the June performance drew from all three volumes. Taking the stage with Bragg and Tweedy, Nora told the crowd she had “been waiting 28 years” to stand there “with Billy on one arm, and Jeff on the other”—bringing the collaboration full circle.

Nearly three decades after Nora first opened her father’s archive to a new generation of musicians, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions brings together the full scope of Billy Bragg and Wilco’s collaboration with Guthrie’s words, while revealing even more from those remarkably productive original sessions.

Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions arrives December 11, 2026. Pre-order/pre-save the collection here.

Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions 4-CD & Digital Tracklist

Disc 1 – Mermaid Avenue

1. Walt Whitman’s Niece
2. California Stars
3. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key
4. Birds and Ships
5. Hoodoo Voodoo
6. She Came Along to Me
7. At My Window Sad and Lonely
8. Ingrid Bergman
9. Christ for President
10. I Guess I Planted
11. One by One
12. Eisler on the Go
13. Hesitating Beauty
14. Another Man’s Done Gone
15. The Unwelcome Guest

Disc 2 – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

1. Airline to Heaven
2. My Flying Saucer
3. Feed of Man
4. Hot Rod Hotel
5. I Was Born
6. Secret of the Sea
7. Stetson Kennedy
8. Remember the Mountain Bed
9. Blood of the Lamb
10. Aginst Th’ Law
11. All You Fascists
12. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
13. Meanest Man
14. Black Wind Blowing
15. Someday Some Morning Sometime

Disc 3 – Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

1. Bugeye Jim
2. When the Roses Bloom Again
3. Gotta Work
4. My Thirty Thousand
5. Ought to Be Satisfied Now
6. Listening to the Wind That Blows
7. Go Down to the Water
8. Chain of Broken Hearts
9. Jailcell Blues
10. Don’t You Marry
11. Give Me a Nail
12. The Jolly Banker
13. Union Prayer
14. Be Kind to the Boy on the Road
15. Ain’ta Gonna Grieve
16. Tea Bag Blues
17. I’m Out to Get

Disc 4 – Alternatives & Demos

1. California Stars (Live)
2. Aginst Th’ Law (Alternate Version)*
3. All You Fascists (Alternate Version)*
4. I Guess I Planted (Alternate Version)*
5. She Came Along To Me (Alternate Version)*
6. Hesitating Beauty (Solo Version)*
7. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again (Demo)*
8. Psalm (Demo)*
9. Hot Rod Hotel (Demo)*
10. Christ For President (Solo Version)*
11. Give Me A Nail (Demo)*
12. Long & Hard (Demo)*
13. I Was Born (Demo)*
14. At My Window Sad And Lonely (Solo Version)
15. Birds And Ships (Demo)*
16. The Unwelcome Guest (Demo)*
17. Airline To Heaven (Solo Version)*
18. Hesitating Beauty (Woody’s Home Tape)*

*Previously unreleased.

Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions 7-LP + 7″ Tracklist

Side A – Mermaid Avenue

1. Walt Whitman’s Niece
2. California Stars
3. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key

Side B – Mermaid Avenue

1. Birds and Ships
2. Hoodoo Voodoo
3. She Came Along to Me
4. At My Window Sad and Lonely

Side C – Mermaid Avenue

1. Ingrid Bergman
2. Christ for President
3. I Guess I Planted
4. One by One

Side D – Mermaid Avenue

1. Eisler on the Go
2. Hesitating Beauty
3. Another Man’s Done Gone
4. The Unwelcome Guest

Side E – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

1. Airline to Heaven
2. My Flying Saucer
3. Feed of Man

Side F – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

1. Hot Rod Hotel
2. I Was Born
3. Secret of the Sea
4. Stetson Kennedy

Side G – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

1. Remember the Mountain Bed
2. Blood of the Lamb
3. Aginst Th’ Law

Side H – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

1. All You Fascists
2. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
3. Meanest Man
4. Black Wind Blowing
5. Someday Some Morning Sometime

Side I – Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

1. Bugeye Jim
2. When the Roses Bloom Again
3. Gotta Work
4. My Thirty Thousand

Side J – Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

1. Ought to Be Satisfied Now
2. Listening to the Wind That Blows
3. Go Down to the Water
4. Chain of Broken Hearts

Side K – Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

1. Jailcell Blues
2. Don’t You Marry
3. Give Me a Nail
4. The Jolly Banker
5. Union Prayer

Side L – Mermaid Avenue Vol. III

1. Be Kind to the Boy on the Road
2. Ain’ta Gonna Grieve
3. Tea Bag Blues
4. I’m Out to Get

Side M – Alternatives & Demos

1. California Stars (Live)
2. Aginst Th’ Law (Alternate Version)*
3. All You Fascists (Alternate Version)*
4. I Guess I Planted (Alternate Version)*
5. She Came Along To Me (Alternate Version)*
6. Hesitating Beauty (Solo Version)*
7. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again (Demo)*
8. Psalm (Demo)*

Side N – Alternatives & Demos

1. Hot Rod Hotel (Demo)*
2. Christ For President (Solo Version)*
3. Give Me A Nail (Demo)*
4. Long & Hard (Demo)*
5. I Was Born (Demo)*
6. At My Window Sad And Lonely (Solo Version)
7. Birds And Ships (Demo)*
8. The Unwelcome Guest (Demo)*
9. Airline To Heaven (Solo Version)*

Bonus 7” (Single-Sided):

1. Hesitating Beauty (Woody’s Home Tape)*

*Previously unreleased.

About Craft Recordings:

Craft Recordings is home to one of the largest and most essential collections of master recordings and compositions in the world. Its storied repertoire includes landmark releases from icons such as Celia Cruz, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Isaac Hayes, John Coltrane, John Lee Hooker, Joan Baez, Joan Sebastian, Little Richard, Miles Davis, and R.E.M. Plus, the catalog recordings of celebrated contemporary acts including A Day to Remember, Alison Krauss, Daddy Yankee, Evanescence, Nine Inch Nails, Taking Back Sunday, and Violent Femmes, to name just a few. Renowned imprints with catalogs issued under the Craft banner include Fania, Fantasy, Fearless, HITCO, Musart, Nitro, Panart, Prestige, Riverside, Rounder, Specialty, Stax, Vanguard, Varèse Sarabande, Vee-Jay and Victory, among many others. Craft creates thoughtfully curated packages, with a meticulous devotion to quality and a commitment to preservation— ensuring that these recordings endure for new generations to discover. Craft is also home to the Billie Holiday and Tammy Wynette estates which preserve and protect their respective names, likeness, and music through day-to-day legacy management of these cultural trailblazers. Craft Recordings is part of BMG.

For more info, visit CraftRecordings.com and follow on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.