Album Review: Billy Bragg & Joe Henry, Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad

Your humble reviewer got very excited at the prospect of a new Billy Bragg album, given the geopolitical turmoil currently rocking the globe. But rather than a collection of Bragg originals, Shine A Light sees the Bard of Barking revisiting a baker’s dozen of American railroad songs, along with his friend and fellow singer-songwriter, North Carolina’s Joe Henry – who most recently co-wrote some of Lisa Hannigan’s gorgeous third album, At Swim.

The two friends didn’t just decamp to a remote studio to record. Instead, the train itself became their studio as these songs were recorded over the course of an epic 65-hour journey across America on the Texas Eagle Railroad Service. You get authentic rail announcements in the background, while the percussive chug of the engine forms an organic heartbeat. Indeed, the record should come with a health warning that prolonged exposure can lull the unwary into an impromptu doze!

The spirit of Boxcar Willie, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly inhabits these old tunes. Indeed, quite a few of them were penned by the latter, including ‘Rock Island Line’, subsequently made famous by Johnny Cash, ‘In The Pines’, recorded by Nirvana as ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’, and ‘The Midnight Special’, a precursor to rock ‘n’ roll, most popularly covered by Creedence.

It’s clear that Bragg and Henry love their source material, from the melancholy yodel of Jimmie Rodgers’ ‘Waiting For A Train’ through Glen Campbell’s bittersweet ‘Gentle On My Mind’ and Guthrie’s magnificent ‘Hobo’s Lullaby’ to the southern twang of Hank Williams’ ‘Lonesome Whistle’, about the call of the railway to a Georgia jailbird. The inhabitants of these songs are classic outsiders, from African American folk hero ‘John Henry’ to 19th century outlaw ‘Railroad Bill’, but the writing is on the wall for the railroad by the time they get to the closer, Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Early Morning Rain’, whose homesick hero admits, “You can’t jump a jet plane like you can a freight train.”

The arrangements are simple: guitar, vocals and the background noises of the 2,728 miles of track the duo travelled from Chicago to LA. They often hit the record button while the train paused to pick up passengers in waiting rooms and at the track side, from St. Louis to El Paso. The result is a wonderfully authentic homage to the wandering songs of singers past.