Skip to main content

Shine a Light: Billy Bragg & Joe Henry on the Railway

Billy Bragg
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Early this year legendary British musician Billy Bragg and American songwriter Joe Henry boarded an Amtrak train bound for Los Angeles.

Recommended Videos

Along the 2800 mile trip, the duo dropped off at a variety of stops to record what would become  Shine a Light: Field Recordings From the Great American Railroad.  Each of the tracks on the album relates in one way or another to the history and mythology of, as the title puts, “The Great American Railroad.”shine-a-light-cover-art

The concept is, admittedly, a little hokey, and in the hands of lesser artists the album could easily have been a simple novelty. The tracks on the record have all been recorded countless times, but in their earnestness as musical anthropologists Bragg and Henry manage to bring real depth to the music and open the door to exploring America’s relationship with the railroad.

Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - "The Midnight Special" (Live at Non-Comm 2016)

It helps that Bragg is a Briton; the UK, unlike the US, has an extensive passenger rail system. Additionally, as Henry described in an interview with Salon last month, Bragg’s not being an American allows him to “[look] into this country with an aerial view of our mythology…and our sense of national identity.” He continued, “And part of what Billy is fascinated about — and I join him there — is waking ourselves up and anybody willing to listen to the fact that not only is the road still an active part of our lives  and stands to be more so if we would seize the opportunity. But it’s a really significant part of our heritage and the way that we understand ourselves and how we relate to each other. I think we need to be awake to that.”

Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - "In The Pines" (Live at Non-Comm 2016)

The United States has a unique relationship with the railroad. It’s one we tend to mythologize and place in the past, but Bragg & Henry, through Shine a Light, present an opportunity to bridge misty memories of how rail used to work with how it works now and will work moving forward.

Billy Bragg and Joe Henry - Railroad Bill (Live on The Current)

Billy Bragg and Joe Henry’s Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad is out now through Cooking Vinyl and available on Amazon, iTunes, and through Bragg’s Emporium.

Terence Praet
Terence Praet contributes to The Manual’s New Music Monday column. He studied Philosophy and History at Skidmore College…
Jeremy Allen White was born to run in the first trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
The movie follows Springsteen as he makes his album 'Nebraska.'
Jeremy Allen White in Deliver Me From Nowhere

Music biopics are all the rage these days, and Bruce Springsteen is the latest icon to get the treatment. The first trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere sees The Bear star inhabiting the role of The Boss. The film is based on Warren's Zane's book of the same name, which focuses on the period when he was making his 1982 album Nebraska.

The film is directed by Scott Cooper, who also directed Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. In the trailer, we see White embodying Springsteen as he sings "Born to Run," and we also get a lengthy monologue from Jeremy Strong's Jon Landau as he explains why Springsteen feels the need to make this album.

Read more
Tony Soprano vs. Walter White: Who is the ultimate antihero?
TV's biggest heavyweights duke it out for the antihero crown
Breaking bad season 4 screen shot

Sports fans often debate between two heavyweight legends. For basketball, it's LeBron James and Michael Jordan. Switching to tennis, you have Roger Federer fans and Rafael Nadal diehards. Debates like these are ingrained in the culture of athletics, but TV fans have their own version of this sparring match.

Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and Walter White from Breaking Bad are the two characters who still send shockwaves through every drama in the 21st century. These men were the perfect mix of good and evil. They navigated family life and the criminal underworld with cunning intelligence and ruthless risk-taking. Every show with morally gray characters at the center owes its storyboard to Walter and Tony, but which character deserves the antihero crown? This is Tony Soprano vs. Walter White for all the marbles.
Who was the more complex character?

Read more
Learn how to smoke a pipe the proper way with our guide for beginners
Let us show you the classy way to smoke a pipe
Packing a pipe

Pipe smoking is the most aesthetically distinguished way to enjoy tobacco, but you lose the classy effect if you don’t know how to smoke a pipe properly. Smoking a pipe has become a lost art, and these days, most people who engage in pipe smoking do so to achieve a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps your grandfather enjoyed a puff now and again paired with a good stiff whiskey, or maybe your goal is to emulate a pipe-smoking artist.

I know that I enjoy a good puff on a pipe now and then, and knowing the right way to enjoy a pipe has made the experience much more pleasurable for for me. Whatever the case, if you intend to take up the time-honored tradition of unwinding with a pipe like me, you should learn how to smoke a pipe the right way. And smoking a pipe is very different than smoking a cigar (except you shouldn't be inhaling either).

Read more