| Man
in the Sand
By Billy Bragg
Available
in the Mermaid Avenue: Deluxe Set ~ at the Woody Guthrie Store
Billy Bragg
documented his year-long research on Woody, and the weeks spent
in the studio recording Mermaid
Avenue, in a feature length film titled MAN IN THE SAND, released
by Palm Pictures on VHS and DVD.
The film crew followed
Billy on a journey to Okemah, Oklahoma (Woody's childhood town) where
he talked to the locals and relatives, and on to Pampa, Texas, where Woody
started playing music professionally. He visits some of the places
in New York City where Woody lived and worked and strolls down the streets
and beaches of Coney Island, where Woody wrote many of the lyrics.
In his first performance
of the MERMAID AVENUE material at Irving Plaza in New York City, Billy
prefaces the show with the line "I'm on a quest. I'm searching
for the spirit of Woody Guthrie," and proceeds to sing "Ingrid
Bergman". Woody's ode to the alluring actress whom he had a
crush on.
The camera crew accompanied
him into the studios where the recordings were made and reveals the often
emotional collaborative process between Billy, Jeff Tweedy and the members
of Wilco. The final scene was filmed at the Fleagh Festival in New
York, where Billy and Wilco first performed the material live together,
casting the fate of MERMAID AVENUE to the listeners.
MAN IN THE SAND is
as much a portrait of Billy's own creative process as it is an almost
anthropological study of Woody's. The man in the sand is both
Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie. It is the simple outline of
both their figures, drawn fifty years apart, in the sands of Coney
Island's beaches.
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