Wonder Wheel isn't the first album created from completed but never recorded lyrics left behind by the late folk icon
Woody Guthrie. In 1998 the British folk-punk singer
Billy Bragg and American roots rockers
Wilco jointly recorded
Mermaid Avenue, which drew from the same pool of material. It was successful enough that a second volume was released two years later. In fact,
Wonder Wheel isn't even the first time
the Klezmatics have turned to
Guthrie's leftovers for inspiration. In 2004, they issued
Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanuka, which, like
Wonder Wheel, found the musicians taking
Guthrie's words -- which he'd never set to music -- and fashioning from them new compositions that adapted readily to their style. Significantly,
the Klezmatics, like the
Bragg/
Wilco project, chose not to attempt writing as if they were '40s dust-bowl troubadours, but rather to place the poet's words into a contemporary folk-roots setting. That's what makes
Wonder Wheel -- the title, incidentally, refers to the beautiful old wooden ferris wheel that has been part of the Brooklyn jewel that is Coney Island, NY, where
Guthrie lived for several years on, you guessed, it, Mermaid Avenue -- such a complete joy. Also significant is that some of the interpretations on
Wonder Wheel bear little resemblance to the klezmer music that has always (and obviously) defined
the Klezmatics, and that all of the songs are sung in English, not the group's more customary language, Yiddish. Those decisions, naturally, make
Wonder Wheel a more accessible
Klezmatics album. The track "Mermaid's Avenue," for example -- curiously, neither of the
Bragg/
Wilco Mermaid Avenue volumes actually included the song -- might just as easily have worked on a
Jonathan Richman record, with its playful lyrics ("Mermaid Avenue that's the street/Where the lox and bagels meet") and minimalist arrangement and instrumentation. Some songs lean closer to Celtic ("From Here On In," beautifully sung by guest vocalist Susan McKeown and chorus) and traditional folk ("Holy Ground") than anything in the Jewish canon, while "Condorbird" is punctuated with a horn chart that neatly peppers its quasi-klezmer rhythm with a southwestern accent. Lyrically,
the Klezmatics choose to showcase as wide a range of
Guthrie's interests as possible, from the vehemently antiwar "Come When I Call You" and "Goin' Away to Sea" to the children's song "Headdy Down" and the hopeful, optimistic "Heaven" and "Wheel of Life." Each of the bandmembers turns in exemplary performances here but the versatile lead vocalist
Lorin Sklamberg is due for special consideration: the purity of his singing, and his acute sensitivity to the words he sings, is the chief reason that
Guthrie's lyrics are transformed from dust-gatherers to living, breathing, vital pieces of music.
Woody's Jewish in-laws would certainly have been proud.