Billy Bragg • singer songwriter and activist

“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

Sun Jul 14th, 2024

Disappointing, painfully so, but at times like this, I remember what it felt like to get knocked out by Iceland and think of the moments of jump-up-and-down joy that the team have produced in the past weeks: Bellingham's bicycle, the five penalties, Watkins' winner. Whatever you think of his tactics, Gareth Southgate has given us more of such moments than any other England manager in my lifetime. For that I thank him. ... See MoreSee Less

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Billy Bragg

Sat Jul 13th, 2024

Seventy years ago today, a guitar, washboard and double bass trio fronted by Lonnie Donegan recorded a version of Lead Belly’s song ‘Rock Island Line’. July 1954 was a watershed month in the history of post-war Britain. At midnight on 4th July, the rationing of food in the UK, which had been in place since 1940, finally came to an end. The following day, at Sun Records in Memphis Tennessee, Elvis Presley cut his first single, ‘That’s Alright’. A week later, ‘Rock Island Line’ was recorded in London.Neither Presley nor Donegan were aware of it at the time, but their recordings would change the course of popular culture. Both fronting trios without drums, their sped-up versions of African-American roots music would place the guitar firmly at the centre of pop.A week after Presley made his first recordings, Donegan was at Decca Records studio, situated at 165 Broadhurst Gardens, in the leafy London suburb of West Hampstead. Studio 2 had been booked for the day by Hugh Mendl, whose aim was to record an album of trad jazz tunes with the Chris Barber Jazz Band. Frustratingly, they did not have enough material for a full album, so Donegan suggested they record some of the Lead Belly songs that had become a staple of their live shows. With Donegan on acoustic guitar, Chris Barber on double bass and Beryl Bryden on washboard, they quickly recorded several songs, two of which, ‘Rock Island Line’ and 'John Henry’, appeared on the subsequent 10” album entitled New Orleans Joys, released in January 1955. The high tempo guitar-led music of the skiffle tracks didn’t sound like the trad jazz songs on the record, but it did sound like Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’, which crashed into the UK charts in October 1955. Someone at Decca noticed the similarity and quickly rushed out ‘Rock Island Line’ by the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group to cash in on Haley’s popularity with teenagers.The insistent rhythm, the exuberant performance, the very word ‘rock’ in the title, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and ‘Rock Island Line’ had the shock of the new and they cut through a chart full of crooners and show tunes like a chainsaw through your parent’s radiogram. But while Haley’s recording was crisp and clean, there was something raw about Donegan’s performance that carried a threat to the staid airwaves dominated by the BBC Home Service. The fact that a British-born singer could create such raucous energy inspired a generation of school kids to learn the guitar. In 1950, some 6,000 acoustic guitars were sold in the UK. By 1957, the year that the skiffle craze peaked, over 250,000 were sold. And almost all of those sales were to children. When Donegan played a week residency at the Liverpool Empire in November 1956, thirteen year old George Harrison went to see him every night. His school mate Paul McCartney, then aged fourteen, also attended one of the shows. It’s not known whether sixteen-year-old John Lennon saw Donegan as well, but he formed a skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in the weeks that followed.Harrison and McCartney would later join Lennon in the Quarrymen and the rest is history. Skiffle taught every sentient schoolboy in Britain the three chords necessary to play Donegan’s repertoire, with the result that, when Chuck Berry turned up playing Johnny B Goode, they could make the transition to rock and roll with ease.This explains why, when Beatlemania gripped the US in 1964, there were dozens of British guitar bands who had been playing for years ready to follow the Fab Four into the US charts. Skiffle was the nursery for the British Invasion. Every one of those musicians had begun as skifflers. David Bowie, Elton John, Jimmy Page, even the guys from Abba - all were inspired by Rock Island Line. George Harrison summed up the significance of the song when he said “No Lead Belly, no Lonnie Donegan. No Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles”. My 2017 book 'Roots, Radicals & Rockers: how skiffle changed the world' is available from my website. Here's a documentary I made about the song a few years ago ... See MoreSee Less

Rock Island Line - The Song That Made Britain Rock

www.youtube.com

Billy Bragg on how one song - Rock Island Line - kickstarted the skiffle craze i...

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Billy Bragg

Wed Jul 10th, 2024

This year marked the 40th anniversary of my first appearance at Glastonbury Festival. I played on the Pyramid Stage on Friday afternoon and later guested with the Hank Wangford Band to play a souped-up version of A13 Trunk Road to the Sea. I was reunited with Hank at this year's festival after inviting him to take part in the Radical Round-Up with myself and Tamzene, a young singer-songwriter from the north of Scotland.I did a tour in late 1984 with the Wangford band and UK-based Japanese art-pop duo Frank Chickens. The Billy, Franks & Hanks Tour was my first proper headline tour and took in places like Whitehaven and Dumfries. In a lovely coincidence Kazuko Hohki, the driving force behind Frank Chickens, was also at Left Field this year, as the partner of my soundman Grant Showbiz.I couldn't resist the oppurtunity to do a 40th anniversary Billy, Franks and Hanks photo in the warm-up tent behind the stage. The black and white press photo from 1984 also features Kazumi Taguchi, the other half of Frank Chickens, and Bobby Valentino who was playing fiddle with Hank's band at the time. ... See MoreSee Less

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