Last March, Billy Bragg and US singer-songwriter Joe Henry spent five days travelling by train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Along the way they recorded their album Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad, with sessions held in waiting rooms, hotels or on platforms. They covered folk and country standards, songs made famous by Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. As Henry explained, “our patron saint was Lead Belly”. It was an inspired idea, and it was clearly enormous fun.
But since then, the political scene has changed dramatically, especially in the US. “It may seem strange to be singing railroad songs with what’s been going on – but I didn’t see Brexit, or Trump, coming,” says Bragg. But it was the tension between the romance of American railroad history and the realisation that Trump is now hurtling down the tracks that made this such an intriguing concert.
The two opened with material from the album, and an unexpectedly thoughtful treatment of Railroad Bill, popularised by Lonnie Donegan during the British skiffle boom. Jean Ritchie’s exquisite lament for a struggling mining community, the L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, was a reminder of ongoing American rural hardship. With their immaculate harmony vocals and guitar work, the duo’s new versions of these great songs proved that they are still relevant – particularly in a pained treatment of Waiting for a Train. And, as Bragg pointed out before introducing the Guthrie favourite Hobo’s Lullaby, a hobo is a romantic term for an economic migrant.
Breaking off from the railroad duets midway through the concert, the mood switched to one of anger. “This is where we are, not who we are,” said Henry, of his homeland, and followed his composition Our Song (“this was my country, this frightful and this angry land”), with a heartfelt treatment of Allen Toussaint’s Freedom for the Stallion. Bragg’s solo spot was even more powerful. After paying tribute to songwriter Greg Trooper, who died at the weekend, he premiered a new song, currently titled Sleep of Reason. A slow, powerful piece that warns of complacency and the destruction of truth leading to “monsters”, it was followed by Anaïs Mitchell’s Why We Build the Wall, from her Hadestown folk opera. The answer being “because we have, and they have not”.
Then it was back to the railroads and skiffle favourites, with a call-and-response treatment of Rock Island Line. The duo were joined by Chas and Dave for a cheerful Midnight Special, before the mood changed yet again with Gentle on My Mind, once an easy listening hit for Glen Campbell. This wildly varied set was far more than an exercise in railroad nostalgia.
- At St George’s, Bristol, 17 January. (Box office: 0845-402 4001.) Then touring until 30 January.
