BILLY Bragg returns to the city with his friend and US singer-song writer Joe Henry to take audiences on a musical journey.

The Shine A Light – Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad tour arrives at Salisbury City Hall on Friday, January 20, 7pm.

The album, which features songs originally recorded by Lead Belly, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Glen Campbell and more, was recorded during the course of a 65-hour journey across the US on the Texas Eagle railroad service.

In March 2016, Bragg and Henry, guitars in hand, boarded a Los Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station. Winding along 2,728 miles of track, the pair recorded songs while the train paused to pick up passengers.

In waiting rooms and at the track side in St Louis, Fort Worth, San Antonio, El Paso and Tucson they set up their recording equipment, and performed classic railroad songs.

“I wanted to make an album of railroad songs that was not just Billy and Joe like trains,” explains Bragg. “We could have gone in the studio and done it easily and may be more simply but it wouldn’t have given the songs a real flavour of the railroad.

“We wanted to take the songs back to where they came from and see if they have any relevance to the way the railroad and America is today and how much America has changed.”

Bragg says they are “looking forward” to bringing the music to the stage and audiences can expect some solo sets from the pair as well as music from the album.

He said there is a “good mixture” of songs from the pair.

For tickets call 01722 434434 or go to cityhallsalisbury.co.uk.