Billy Bragg
 Looking back on all the pop star excess of the decade, the 80s
needed Steven William Bragg more than anyone could have imagined
at the time.
From Brewing up with Billy Bragg right through to Don't
Try This At Home and all points between (the wars), this man
accompanied us through some of the toughest and bitter-sweet years
of the late 20th century. So, let's talk with the Taxman about
poetry . . .
Billy Bragg was inspired to pick up a guitar by punk - and more
specifically a Clash gig in 1977. In true
DIY fashion, he formed a band, Riff Raff, with his childhood
friend Wiggy, who taught him how to play the guitar he'd just
picked up.
Riff Raff split in 1981. Bill's next, bizarre career move was
to join the British Army - he wanted to drive a tank. He lasted
just three months, got discharged and, fresh out of uniform, began
to gig as a solo artist.
After a year of touring, he came to the attention of music
publishers Warner Chappell, who allowed him to record some demos
in their studio.
The results turned out to be a full debut EP, Life's A Riot
With Spy Vs. Spy, released by Go! Discs in 1984. The record
was a jolt - right from the clarion guitar that leads into Milkman
of Human Kindness.
It was a tour of Britain - through 1984 and 1985 - visiting
communities torn apart by the miners'
strike, that turned Bragg into the political songsmith of
current legend. He began to play benefits and pen overtly
political songs, some of which found their way onto Brewing Up
With Billy Bragg (1984).
Bill hit his stride, penning powerful anthems like It Says
Here - a damning exhortation aimed at the press - along with
studies of romantic complication like Love Gets Dangerous.
Serious chart action was to follow in 1985, first with Kirsty
MacColl's version of A New England (for which he wrote
a new verse), and then with his own Between The Wars EP
(1985), for which he took a lone guitar, an amp and a checked
shirt on to the image-dominated Top
of the Pops TV show, and into the Top 20.
1986 saw the political stakes raised with a leading role in Red
Wedge, an organisation and tour (also involving The
Style Council, Madness, The
Communards and Morrissey) that
threw its weight firmly behind the Labour Party and unsuccessfully
tried to make politics 'sexy'.
Later in the year, Bragg released what was to be his first
great single, Levi Stubbs' Tears - an agonisingly sorrowful
snapshot of love and violence (and The Four
Tops).
The album that followed, Talking With The Taxman About
Poetry (1986) - subtitled 'the difficult third album' - not
only broadened the musical backdrop but saw a new and sharper
lyricism that ranged from trade unionism to the pressures of young
marriage. The album still stands as his grandest statement yet and
contains the evocative Greetings to the New Brunette. A
love song of no small grandeur, Brunette is a bona fide
masterpiece.
 With
pianist Cara Tivey, he recorded She's Leaving Home, a
contribution to an NME benefit album of Beatles
covers, Sergeant Pepper Knew My Father (1988); released as
a double A-side with Wet Wet Wet's With
A Little Help From My Friends, it topped the UK charts for a
month, with all proceeds donated to Childline, an organisation
devoted to helping children in trouble.
'Capitalism is killing music' was the cheery message emblazoned
on Bragg's next release, the accomplished Worker's Playtime
(1988), but the album's political element was kept to a minimum -
essentially, this was an honest and beautiful set of love songs.
1990's The Internationale, on the other hand, focused on
out-and-out socialist lyrics. The two were to mix on Sexuality,
the 1991 single that took Bragg back into the charts; its 12"
version even boasted a dance remix.
For Don't Try This At Home (1991), a full band (still
featuring Wiggy) was recruited, and augmented by guests like
Michael Stipe and Peter Buck of R.E.M.
Bragg then took a break from the music business after the birth
of his son Jack in 1993, popping up only to play alongside
S*M*A*S*H at the Carnival Against The Nazis in 1994, and at the
Glastonbury Festival in 1995.
Always more than just a musician, Billy has also assumed the
role of political and social commentator, contributing to British
newspapers and the NME, and fronting several documentaries
for BBC radio and TV. Nevertheless, eagerly awaited new material
and live work was not far away.
This new role of father was one that was to shape much of his
next album, William Bloke (1996). A companion piece, Bloke
On Bloke (1997) was followed by the 'Blatant Electioneering
Tour' running up to the General Election, culminating on the night
itself with an emotion drenched London show.
Fittingly, his first ever gig under a Labour government came at
the union backed May Day free festival in Finsbury Park.
The politics of another period provided the basis for his next
project, Mermaid Avenue (1998). Backed by country heroes
Wilco, it took a collection of Woody
Guthrie's lyrics and set them to new music.
An immensely fitting combination and one that drew high praise
from all quarters, not least Guthrie's own daughter.
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