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Page last updated at 08:27 GMT, Monday, 9 April 2012 09:27 UK

Billy Bragg on Guthrie's lost lyrics

This year it will be 100 years since the American folk singer, Woody Guthrie was born.

When Guthrie died in 1967, he left complete lyrics for more than 3000 songs which lay undiscovered until his daughter Nora found them in the mid 1990s.

Nora asked the musician Billy Bragg and the Chicago alternative rock band Wilco to set the lyrics to music.

Two celebrated ermaid Avenue albums followed, recorded in 1998 and 2000 and to mark the centenary of Guthrie's birth, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is being released on 21 April.

It includes both albums together with previously unreleased materials from the sessions and the Man in the Sand documentary about the sessions.

The Today programme's Sarah Montague spoke to both Nora and Billy who reflected on the amazing discovery.


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