The Old 97s were supposed to do Mermaid Avenue with Billy Bragg??

My dear friend and SXSW travel partner John sent this to me today. John and I don't 100% agree in all of our musical choices. But he too loves the Old 97s as much as I (well ok, probably not as much as I'm rather certain that I am alone in my naughty Rhett fantasies), but he's stoically endured the "whither I'm a flower" mess I become in Rhett's presence more than once hence....a true blue friend. AND he sends me things like the video you see below.

For the life of me, I can't determine if Rhett's saying the Old 97s were supposed to tour with Billy Bragg in place of Wilco for the Mermaid Avenue tour, or they were supposed to record with Billy Bragg for Mermaid Avenue II...but still, it's rather neat to know they were supposed to be part of it. (If you don't know the backstory there, Billy Bragg and Wilco were supposed to tour behind the first Mermaid Avenue record (I think it was the first one), but they started to squabble and Wilco wound up turning the whole thing down. But then they did another Mermaid Avenue record, so you can see my confusion regarding Rhett's statement here at the beginning of the video).

ANYWAY, here's Stewart Ransom Miller doing an acoustic version of Wilco and Billy's Bragg's "California Stars."