NEW ALBUM – ‘SHINE A
LIGHT: Field
Recordings From The Great American Railroad’
To be released on 23rd
Sept ‘16 On Cooking Vinyl
+ UK SHOWS ANNOUNCED
Recorded while traveling across America by train Shine A Light features songs originally made famous by Hank
Williams, Lead Belly, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Glen Campbell, Gordon
Lightfoot & more
WATCH BILLY BRAGG AND
JOE HENRY PERFORM ‘THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’ HERE
Like many a British
musician before him, Billy Bragg, bard of Barking, singer songwriter, political
activist, and musical historian has made no secret of his obsession with the
songs and the mythology of the Americas, not least those of his artistic and
philosophical forebear Woody Guthrie. With his friend and collaborator,
US singer songwriter Joe Henry, he has made an album that focuses on the
transformative part the railroad played in disseminating the songs that gave
birth to the rock’n’roll era. ‘Shine
A Light – Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad’ by Billy Bragg and
Joe Henry, released on Cooking Vinyl on 23rd September ’16, is
a collection of railway-themed classic songs recorded in the course of a 65
hour journey across the US on the Texas Eagle railroad service. Featuring
thirteen songs originally recorded by legendary singers such as Lead Belly,
Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Glen Campbell and more, the album is an
atmospheric travelogue, a gripping lesson in musicology, but most importantly
it is a beautifully recorded collection of wonderful tunes.
In March 2016 Billy Bragg and Joe Henry, guitars in hand, boarded a Los
Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station. Winding along 2,728 miles of
track, the pair recorded songs while the train paused to pick up passengers. In
waiting rooms and at the track side in St Louis, Fort Worth, San Antonio,
Alpine TX, El Paso and Tucson they set up their recording equipment, and
performed classic railroad songs while keeping half an eye on the train and
jumping back on board just before pulling out for the next town. After four
days crossing the country, they pulled into Los Angeles at 4:30am, recording
their final song in Union Station accompanied by the first chirpings of the
dawn chorus.
The resulting album ‘Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American
Railroad’ features the perfectly matched voices of Bragg and Henry and captures
the varied atmospheres of the environments in which they recorded—from the
close proximity of soft-furnished sleeping cars to the cathedral-like ambience
of historic railway stations.
Says Billy:
“Railroad songs
provided the bedrock of American popular music, from Jimmie Rodgers, the
Singing Brakeman, to Lead Belly, whose repertoire provided several of the songs
for this project. In this country, Lonnie Donegan’s 1956 hit ‘Rock Island Line’
sparked the skiffle craze, inspiring a generation of British teens to pick up
guitars and form the groups that invaded American in the 60s, from the Beatles
to Led Zeppelin.
Growing up in the UK, I’d
always been aware of this tradition but when I travelled to the US, I was
surprised to find how few people look to the railroad as a means of transport.
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.”
Says Joe:
“The emergence of the
railroad in America boasted of our might and sprawling enormity, yet signaled a
deep desire for close community, connectivity. The songs that grew out of and
alongside this innovation remain to tell this story of collective national
character.”
Billy Bragg and Joe Henry most recently worked together when Henry produced
Bragg’s acclaimed 2013 album Tooth & Nail. The duo will tour the UK together
later this year, performing songs from ‘Shine A Light’ and more. Full tour
details are as follows:
NOVEMBER
7 LONDON Union Chapel
8 LONDON Union Chapel
9 CANTERBURY The Marlowe Theatre
10 BRIGHTON St.George’s Church
12 PORTSMOUTH New Theatre Royal
13 COVENTRY Warwick Arts Centre
14 GUILDFORD G Live
15 BURY ST EDMUNDS The Apex
17 NOTTINGHAM Playhouse
18 MANCHESTER The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM)
19 LINCOLN The Engine Shed
Track Listing for Shine
A Light…
1. Rock Island Line – Traditional (Recorded by Lead Belly, Lonnie
Donegan)
2. The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore – Jean Ritchie
3. The Midnight Special – Traditional (Lead Belly)
4. Railroad Bill – Traditional (Riley Puckett)
5. Lonesome Whistle – Hank Williams
6. KC Moan – Traditional (The Memphis Jug Band)
7. Waiting For A Train – Jimmie Rodgers
8. In The Pines – Traditional (Lead Belly, The Louvin Brothers)
9. Gentle On My Mind – John Hartford (Glenn Campbell, Aretha Franklin)
10. Hobo’s Lullaby – Goebel Reeves (Woody Guthrie)
11. Railroading On The Great Divide – Sara Carter (The Carter Family)
12. John Henry – Traditional (Doc Watson)
13. Early Morning Rain – Gordon Lightfoot
Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and
peerless political campaigner for over 30 years. Among the former Saturday
boy’s albums are his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, the more
love-infused Workers Playtime, pop classic Don’t Try This At Home, the Queen’s
Golden Jubilee-timed treatise on national identity England, Half-English, and
his stripped-down tenth, Tooth and Nail, his most successful since the early
90s. The intervening three decades have been marked by a number one hit single,
having a street named after him, being the subject of a South Bank Show,
appearing on stage at Wembley Stadium, curating Leftfield at Glastonbury,
sharing spotted dick with a Cabinet minister in the House of Commons cafeteria,
being mentioned in Bob Dylan’s memoir and meeting the Queen. At their best,
Billy’s songs present ‘the
perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (the
Guardian).
In a career spanning 30 years, Joe Henry has left an indelible and unique
imprint on American popular music. As a songwriter and artist, Henry is
celebrated for his exploration of the human experience. A hyper-literate
storyteller, by turns dark, devastating, and hopeful, he has an author’s eye
for the overlooked detail.
Henry has collaborated with many notable artists on his own body of work, from
T Bone Burnett, Daniel Lanois, and Van Dyke Parks on one side of the spectrum,
to Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, and Bill Frisell on the other. A
three-time-Grammy-winning producer, Henry has made records for Bonnie Raitt,
Hugh Laurie, Lisa Hannigan, Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke, and many others. In
2015, Henry helmed a recording session for the late Allen Toussaint. The
resulting album, American Tunes, will be released this year. In 2013,
Algonquin Press published, Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made
Him, a book co-written by Joe and his brother Dave Henry.
Henry’s most recent studio album, Invisible Hour, was released on his own Work
Song label. The album features numerous guests including The Milk Carton Kids
as well as Lisa Hannigan, who co-wrote the title track along with Henry and
best-selling novelist Colum McCann. As a solo artist and a producer
alike, Henry’s records are marked with a consistent sonic depth, attention to
narrative, and emphasis on the beauty of spontaneity.
See Billy & Joe performing The Midnight Special HERE.
This track is also available to download immediately when you pre-order the
album from the official store or iTunes.
WEBSITE: http://po.st/ShineALight1
OFFICIAL STORE: http://po.st/SaLStore
AMAZON: http://po.st/SaLamz
ITUNES: http://po.st/SaLiT