Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 35 years. Politicized by a Tory government operating without love or justice, this previously adrift young man from Barking, England, whose failure at national exams had reduced his career opportunities to two, eventually bought himself out of the British Army in 1981 (‘the best £175 I ever spent’), determined to make a living out of song.
Governments rise and fall, fashions come and go, pop stars are built up and knocked down by a fickle media, and Billy Bragg adapts to survive: the one-time Luddite and failed handyman has embraced New Media and engages with fans directly via Facebook and Twitter, uploading songs when a headline strikes. His enemies remain essentially the same: craven politicians, inhumane corporations, plus assorted racists, fascists, bullies, reactionaries and people with floppy fringes.
Among the former Saturday boy’s albums are his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, the more love-infused Workers Playtime, pop classic Don’t Try This At Home, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee-timed treatise on national identity England, Half-English, and his stripped-down tenth, 2013's Tooth & Nail, his most successful since the early '90s.
The intervening three decades have been marked by a number one hit single, having a street named after him, being the subject of a South Bank Show, appearing onstage at Wembley Stadium, curating Left Field at Glastonbury, sharing spotted dick with a Cabinet minister in the House of Commons cafeteria, being mentioned in Bob Dylan’s memoir and meeting the Queen. At their best, Billy’s songs present ‘the perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (the Guardian). Bragg has recently added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World.
Don’t miss the orator, entertainer, rabble-rouser, negotiator, pamphleteer, the fabled ‘Bard of Barking’, Billy Bragg, across three extraordinary evenings.
