Billy Bragg • singer songwriter and activist
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“The frustration of seeing nothing that spoke to me on Top Of The Pops in the early 80’s made me realise if I wanted to hear music that had something to say about the state of the world and real life, I’d have to make it myself. 18 months later I recorded my first LP. To mark the 40th anniversary of Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy, I’ve compiled a number of commemorative releases that trace the arc of my career since those fateful Thursday nights.” Billy Bragg 2023

‘The music of Britain’s foremost protest singer gets an evocative overview in this nuanced compilation’

Album Of The Week

The Guardian

‘…a musically mature, international artist who is still bursting with energy.’

Rolling Stone 

‘A British institution.’

Clash

‘One of the great human beings of Planet Earth…while the world changes by the minute, Billy’s empathy remains steadfast.’

Brooklyn Vegan

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Billy Bragg is at Thornley Hall Farm.

Fri May 17th, 2024

Billy Bragg
Following the rescheduling of Northern Kin Festival to 9-11th August 2024 I am delighted to announce that I'll be playing the new dates alongside a whole host of amazing artists. Here’s your first look at the line up with many more to follow next week.- northernkinfestival.co.uk ... See MoreSee Less

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Billy Bragg

Thu May 9th, 2024

Billy Bragg
Photos from Basic Folk's post ... See MoreSee Less
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Billy Bragg

Sun May 5th, 2024

Billy Bragg
I always believed that the first record I bought with my own money was ‘You Wear It Well’ by Rod Stewart, but a wet bank Holiday weekend has left me rummaging among my teenage years and, looking into the earliest of my old boxes of 45s from the early 1970s, I was surprised to find that ‘Maggie May’ was the first title on the lid list. My record collecting days began in June 1972, when I got a Saturday job at Guy Norris’ big double fronted shop opposite Barking Station. The ground floor was a large hardware store while the basement housed Barking’s premier record shop. I worked in the former, but spent much of my spare time in the latter.At last I had some spare cash with which to start a singles collection and I soon bought a neat box in which to keep them. Writing the title of each new purchase in the lid has left me with a chronology that also serves as a diary of my developing musical taste and, like any teenage diary, it contains embarrassing statements that have not aged well. Yes, I’m talking about the Gary Glitter single. What can I say? I was 14 years old and he was hugely popular at school.Looking at the titles, it’s clear that I was making up for lost time. Over half of these singles were released before I started work, some a decade or two before. Both ‘Maggie May’ and ‘Vincent’ had made a big impression on me in previous twelve months, but once they dropped out of the charts, singles tended to disappear from record shops, which relied on a fast turnover of popular chart hits. However, there was a confectionary shop on Longbridge Road, next to the main gates of Barking Park, that sold ex-chart singles for 15p. There, among the sweets and ciggies, stood a wire carousel containing recent hits. Sure, I could have got my pals in the record basement to order these discs for me, but even with my staff discount, they would have been more expensive (I originally thought singles were called 45s because they cost 45p).Having bought ‘You Wear It Well’ when it entered the charts in August 1972, I recall also picking up ‘Maggie May’ and ‘Vincent’ from the confectioners on the way home from work. I guess, when it came to writing their titles in the lid list, I just put them in order of release, rather than purchase. The cheapo carousel supplied quite a few of my early purchases: ‘American Pie’, ‘Me & Julio’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel' all came through that route. But I wasn’t only living in the past: ‘Hi Hi Hi’, ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Angel’ were all chart singles. Some of the choices look a little odd fifty years later. ‘Four in the Morning’ I bought for my nan and she gave me ‘Hoots Mon’ by way of return. If I remember rightly, ’Teach Yourself Heath’ was a flexidisc that came attached to the cover of the NME (it’s no longer in the box). The Jackie Whitren single reflects a time when I would hear a song once on the radio and become obsessed with it. I knew nothing about her back then and never heard another song she wrote, but I can sing all of the words of ‘Give Her The Day’ without much prompting.‘What the World Needs Now/Abraham, Martin and John’ is a real anomaly. Tom Clay was radio DJ from Detroit who mixed radio reports of the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jnr and Robert Kennedy with small children struggling to define words like bigotry and segregation, overlaid with the songs that give the single its name. Released on the Motown label, it sold over a million copies in the US and and its mash-up of documentary audio with soul music blew my 14 year old mind.The appearance of Buddy Holly, Danny and the Juniors and Jerry Lee Lewis can be put down to the popularity of ‘That’ll Be The Day’, a movie set in the 1950s starring David Essex which came out in early 1973. It set off a craze for original rock’n’rollers among my school friends several years before the whole Happy Days thing led to a glut of Showaddywaddy/Rubettes/Shakin’ Stevens cod-rockers clogging up the UK charts. I’m surprised by how many of B-sides of these singles have stayed in my mind. There are the obvious ones - ‘Ziggy Stardust’ is the b-side of ‘The Jean Genie’ - but other more obscure tunes I find myself going back to more often than the A-sides. ‘Perfect Day’ is the B-side of ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, ‘Castles in the Air’ is a brilliant song on the flip side of ‘Vincent’ and I’d rate ‘C-Moon’ on the back of ‘Hi Hi Hi’ by Wings to be among the most catchy songs that McCartney wrote. Surely ‘I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas’ is a much better manifestation of the talents of Spike Milligan that ‘The YingTong Song’?Interesting to find that a few of these songs have not migrated to Spotify or Apple Music. It seems YouTube is better source if you’re looking for Peter Straker and the Hands of Doctor Teleny. I guess the difference is that while the mega streaming services rely on rights holders for material, YouTube is a manifestation of personal passions, a place where songs can be posted by individuals to whom they once meant so much. ... See MoreSee Less

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