Shine a Light: Billy Bragg’s album of railway songs

Billy Bragg has taken another leaf out of the great American folk songbook, but this time it’s railroad songs.

Billy Bragg, left, and Shine a Light collaborator Joe Henry

England’s Bard of Barking Billy Bragg is no stranger to the history of American folk music, having plunged himself into the Woody Guthrie lyric archive some years ago, along with roots rockers Wilco, to produce the Mermaid Avenue albums, adding their music to Guthrie’s words.

Now Bragg has taken another leaf out of the great American folk songbook, this time from the catalogue of railroad songs that form such an integral part of the nation’s cultural history. He has teamed up with singer, songwriter and producer (and Madonna’s cousin) Joe Henry to present 13 songs on the new album Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad, which is due for release in September.

To add authenticity to the project, the two friends (Henry produced Bragg’s last album, Tooth & Nail) recorded the material, which includes Hank Williams’s Lonesome Whistle, Jimmy Rodgers’s Waiting For a Train and traditional classics such as TheMidnight Special and Rock Island Line, while on a train trip across the US. In March they boarded a train in Chicago bound for Los Angeles and recorded the songs on various platforms and in waiting rooms along the way as the train took on passengers.

Says Bragg: “With this project, we wanted to explore the transformative power that the coming of the railroad had on the lives of ordinary people by taking these songs back to the places that inspired their creation. Travelling on the train and recording the songs as we went allowed us to both visit places that were important 125 years ago when the lines were laid but to also explore the viability of the railroad as a means of transport in the 21st century.”

Congratulations this week to a bard of our own, Paul Kelly, who was honoured on Wednesday at the music industry charity Support Act’s event Music in the House, held at the Ivy Ballroom in Sydney.

Kelly joins Jimmy Barnes, John Butler and the Sapphires, among others, who have received the Support Act nod for their contributions to Australian culture. Kelly also performed at the event, as did Julia Stone, Thelma Plum and Urthboy.

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