9 October 2026 – Wilco and Billy Bragg Expand Mermaid Avenue Again With Eighteen Additional Recordings

Wilco and Billy Bragg have announced another expanded edition of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, arriving December 11 through Craft Recordings. The original Mermaid Avenue appeared in 1998 and transformed previously unused lyrics by American folk legend Woody Guthrie into newly composed songs. The collaboration produced enduring material including "California Stars" and was followed by a second volume in 2000.

A 2012 collection subsequently gathered both albums alongside seventeen additional recordings. The forthcoming edition expands the archive again, adding eighteen more tracks across a seven-LP collection accompanied by a seven-inch single. Seventeen additions consist of alternate takes and demos, while another features a Guthrie home recording of "Hesitating Beauty." The announcement follows Wilco and Bragg performing Americana and folk material together at this year's Solid Sound festival.

The project's enduring appeal comes from treating Guthrie's writing as living material rather than historical documentation. His lyrics continue to acquire different meanings when interpreted through contemporary arrangements. There is something wonderfully appropriate about an archive that keeps revealing additional possibilities nearly three decades after its first release. Apparently The Complete Sessions was not quite as complete as everybody originally believed.