Wilco’s A Ghost is Born Expanded Edition

With hindsight, you could look at Wilco’s A Ghost is Born as a transitional album. Much has been written about their previous LP, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot , and a documentary film, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart , chronicles how during the making of that record Jay Bennett left the band, Glenn Kotche joined the band, and Jim O’Rourke ended up doing the final mixes of the record.

O’Rourke is on board from the beginning on A Ghost is Born as both a co-producer with the band and as a player, and he also mixed the album. Mikael Jorgensen, who had met the band at Soma Electronic Music Studios when they were mixing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot , joined the band on keyboards for A Ghost is Born and has remained in the band ever since, along with founding members Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt.

The recently-released anniversary edition of A Ghost is Born is available in several different expanded sets, includes a lot of extras and documentation, and it’s a good reason to revisit this album. There are demo versions from Soma and Sear Sound on the expanded edition, along with some unreleased tracks like “Diamond Claw” and “Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard”. One of the other highlights of A Ghost is Born is Jeff Tweedy’s angular and noisy guitar playing, which is all over the record as he is the sole guitarist on the album. There are lots of long extended solos that fall somewhere between Neil Young and Sonic Youth. Once this record was released, guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone joined the band, and that lineup has been a constant to this date. The next Wilco record, the live Kicking Television, Live in Chicago , documents that line up and completes the transition to the current band. Tracks from A Ghost is Born performed live, like “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” for instance, almost feel more like definitive versions than the original. In the end, A Ghost is Born gave birth to one of the best and most versatile six piece American rock bands of the last few decades.

We’ve interviewed a lot of the people involved in these records, including Jim O’Rourke , Jay Bennett , and most recently our editor, Larry Crane, interviewed Jeff Tweedy for Tape Op #132.