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Stephen William Bragg (born December 20, 1957),
known as Billy Bragg, is a British musician known
for his blend of Folk_music| folk, punk-rock, and
Protest song| protest music.  He has been active
for over 20 years. His music is a combination of
poetry and political comment, with a dash of
romance. He has collaborated with many other
musicians, from Johnny Marr of The Smiths, Protest
song| protest folk singer Leon Rosselson to R.E.M.
(band)|R.E.M., Kirsty MacColl, and Wilco.

==Brief biography==
===Early years===
Billy Bragg was born in a district of Essex,
England|Essex that is now part of Greater London.
He grew up in the district of London Borough of
Barking and Dagenham| Barking, which he has always
considered his home. However, his successful
career was to take him across the globe, singing
songs of freedom and advocating social change. He
is still associated with his London roots and is
sometimes known, jocularly, as "the bard of
Barking".


Attending a comprehensive school, Bragg's
educational career was uneventful. One source
states that the only class he got an A in was
English.  He left school with few qualifications,
but determined to do something with his life. He
teamed up with his next door neighbour, Wiggy, and
practised guitar. They would teach each other new
riffs that they had listened to from their
widening record collection. Their main influences
in the early 1970s were The Faces, The Small
Faces, The Rolling Stones and eventually, punk
rock|punk. They formed a punk/Pub rock (UK)|pub
rock band called Riff Raff and toured London's
pubs and clubs. The band also practised in a farm
house in the county of Northamptonshire, and
released several singles. However these records
didn't receive wide exposure and the band failed.

===Army career===
Following the Riff Raff experience, Bragg became
disillusioned with his musical career and joined
the British Army. This move turned out very
quickly not to be the right one for him, but would
nevertheless act as an inspiration for his later
work. He bought his way out of the army and
returned home to his parents and his music.

===Solo musical career===
Bragg turned to tirelessly gigging (and even
busking) around London, performing solo with an
electric guitar. His demo tape fell initially on
deaf ears, but by pretending to be a television
repair man he got into the office of Charisma
Records' A&R man Peter Jenner. Jenner liked the
tape, but the company was near bankruptcy and he
had no budget to sign new artists. Bragg had an
offer to record more demos for a music publisher,
so Jenner agreed to put them out as a record with
Bragg's industrious gigging as the only promotion.
Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy came out on
Charisma's new "Utility" imprint in July 1983. The
album was widely received as a demonstration of a
promising new talent. Hearing DJ John Peel mention
on-air that he was hungry, Bragg rushed to the BBC
with a mushroom biryani, and was rewarded with
airplay that Peel insisted he would have had
anyway.

Within months Charisma had been taken over by
Virgin Records and Jenner, who had been laid off,
became Bragg's manager. A copy of Life's A Riot
fell into the hands of former Stiff Records press
officer Andy Macdonald, who was setting up his own
record label, Go! Discs. He made Virgin an offer
and the album was re-released on Go! Discs in
November.

In 1984 he released Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, a
mixture of political statements ("It Says Here")
and songs of unrequited love ("The Saturday Boy").
The following year he put out "Between the Wars",
an EP of political songs which included a cover
version of Leon Rosselson's The Diggers| Diggers
anthem "World Turned Upside Down". He later
collaborated with Rosselson on the song "Ballad of
the Spycatcher". Also in 1985, his song "A New
England", with an additional verse, became a top
ten hit in the UK for Kirsty MacColl. After
MacColl's early death, Bragg always sang the extra
verse, in her honour.


In 1986 Bragg released his "difficult third
album", Talking with the Taxman about Poetry. Its
title is taken from a poem by Russian poet
Vladimir Mayakovsky, which was printed in
translation on the inner sleeve. Taxman was well
received, and with promotion from the single "Levi
Stubbs' Tears", gave Bragg his first top ten
album.

September 1988 saw the release of his fourth
album, Workers Playtime, which some claimed to be
his finest work to date. This was a drastic move
for Bragg, dropping his solo guitar for a backing
band and accompaniment, but adding a new dimension
and style.

In May 1990, Bragg released a neo-political
mini-LP, entitled The Internationale (album)|The
Internationale.  The songs were, in part, a return
to his solo guitar style but other tracks featured
more complicated arrangements, including brass
bands.

Don't Try This At Home was released in September
1991 and included his best known hit at the time
"Sexuality" which was released as a single and
made it into the UK Singles Chart|UK charts. Bragg
had been persuaded by Go! Discs bosses Andy and
Juliet Macdonald to sign to a new four-album deal
with a million pound advance, and to promote the
album with singles and videos. This gamble was not
rewarded with extra sales, and put the company in
difficulty. In exchange for ending the contract
and repaying a large amount of the advance, Bragg
regained all rights to his back catalogue. Bragg
continued to promote the album with his backing
band the Red Stars, which included his Riff-Raff
colleague and longtime roadie, Wiggy.

===Woody Guthrie collaboration===

It would be five years until the release of his
next album, William Bloke, as Bragg took time off
from the music business to help look after his
young son. 

Around the time William Bloke was released, Bragg
was asked by Nora Guthrie, daughter of American
folk legend Woody Guthrie, to set some of her
father's unrecorded lyrics to music. The result
was a collaboration with the band Wilco with a
contribution from Natalie Merchant (with whom he
had worked previously), released as Mermaid Avenue
(1998) and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (2000). A rift
with Wilco over mixing and sequencing of the album
led to Bragg recruiting his own band, the Blokes,
to promote the album. The Blokes include veteran
keyboardist Ian McLagan, a member of Bragg's
boyhood heroes The Faces.

==Political life==
Billy Bragg who now lives in Dorset with his
family, has long enjoyed a close relationship with
grass-roots political movements and this is often
reflected in his original lyrics and music. In
between recording music in the studio, Bragg was
building up a regular following of fans at live
performances. Here, his sense of humour is shown
in its truest form, allowing himself to ridicule
those in power.

Billy Bragg backed the UK miners' strike
(1984-1985)|miners' strike of 1984 and the
following year he helped to create the left-wing
youth movement called Red Wedge to inform young
voters of the Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party's
policies and discourage them from voting for the
Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party during
the 1987 United Kingdom general election,
1987|general election.

During the election period he allied itself with
Neil Kinnock and the left-wing faction of the
Labour Party. Following the defeat of Kinnock and
the repeated victory of Margaret Thatcher and her
Conservative Party government, Billy Bragg joined
Charter88 to push for a total reform of the
British political system.

During the 1980s he also promoted both his ideas
and music in the United States. In Dallas, Texas
he was interviewed and often featured by George
Gimarc on his Rock and Roll Alternative radio
programme which originated at the studios of KZEW.

During the United Kingdom general election,
2001|2001 UK general election Billy Bragg
attempted to combat voter apathy by promoting
tactical voting in an attempt to unseat Tory
candidates in Dorset, particularly in Dorset South
and West Dorset (constituency)|West Dorset.  At
the 2001 election Labour took Dorset South with
their smallest majority, and the Conservative
majority in West Dorset was reduced; at the United
Kingdom general election, 2005|2005 election
Labour held Dorset South but Oliver Letwin
increased his majority in West Dorset.

Billy Bragg continues to use the lyrics of his
music to promote his personal political ideas. To
this end he developed an interest in
England|English national identity and this was
displayed on his 2002 album with the Blokes,
England, Half-English.

In recent years Charter88 has allied itself to
other groups which Billy Bragg also supports, in
order to promote the idea of replacing the House
of Lords with an elected second chamber using a
Secondary Mandate voting system. The Secondary
Mandate has been defined as a system of counting
General Election votes by party at a regional
level, and then allocating each party a number of
seats according to the total votes gained by each
party in the polls.

This proposed Secondary Mandate has attracted
support from a number of Government ministers
including Peter Hain and Lord Falconer, who
invited Bragg to further present his ideas on the
matter. However, the Secondary Mandate proposal
has been criticised because instead of electing
members, it relies upon appointments from a closed
list controlled not by the voters, but by the
political parties. Small parties would be at a
disadvantage because they may not field candidates
in all constituency seats and therefore their
overall standing in the Secondary Mandate system
would be very low.

===Related articles===
*Red Wedge - Formed to gain a youth vote to
support Neil Kinnock.
*Charter88 - Supported by Billy Bragg and formed
after the defeat of Neil Kinnock.
*George Gimarc - Published author on the era of
British punk rock music.

==Discography==
===Albums and compilations===
* Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy (May 1983)
* Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (November 1984)
* Talking with the Taxman about Poetry (September
1986)
* Back To Basics (June 1987)
* The Peel Sessions (June 1987)
* Workers Playtime (September 1988)
* The Internationale (album)|The Internationale
(May 1990)
* The Peel Sessions Album (1991)
* Don't Try This At Home (September 1991)
* Victim Of Geography (November 1993)
* William Bloke (September 1996)
* Bloke On Bloke (1997)
* Mermaid Avenue (with Wilco) (June 1998)
* Reaching To The Converted (August 1999)
* Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (with Wilco) (May 2000)
* England, Half English (March 2002)
* Must I Paint You A Picture? The Essential Billy
Bragg (October 2003) (A double album|double CD
compilation of "greatest hits" was released on
Cooking Vinyl, with a limited edition B-sides and
rarities compilation)

===Official bootlegs===
* No Pop, No Style, Strictly Roots (1995)
* Mermaid Avenue Tour (1999)
* Going To A Party Way Down South (2002)
* Live At The Barbican (web-only mp3 album) (2005)

===Singles & EPs===
* Between The Wars EP (February 1985)
* "Days Like These" (December 1985)
* "Levi Stubbs' Tears" (June 1986)
* "Greetings To The New Brunette" (November 1986)
* "She's Leaving Home" (May 1988)
* "Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards" (August
1988)
* "She's Got A New Spell" (November 1988)
* "Sexuality" (June 1991)
* "You Woke Up My Neighbourhood" (August 1991)
* "Accident Waiting To Happen" (Red Star Version)
(February 1992)
* "Accident Waiting To Happen" (Live Version)
(February 1992)
* "Upfield" (1996)
* "The Boy Done Good"/"Sugardaddy" (May 1997)
* "Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key" (with Wilco)
(1998)
* She Came Along To Me EP (with Wilco) (1998)
* "England, Half English"/"St. Monday" (February
2002)
* "Take Down The Union Jack" (May 2002)
* "The Price of Oil" 2002
http://www.billybragg.co.uk/releases/miscellaneous
/price_of_oil.html Lyrics
http://www.billybragg.co.uk/acatalog/Digital_Downl
oads.html Free Download

==References==

Andrew Collins; Still Suitable For Miners (Billy
Bragg: The Official Biography); Virgin Books; ISBN
0-7535-0691-2 (Revised and Updated edition, 2002)

==External links==

*http://www.billybragg.co.uk Official site
*http://braggtopia.com Braggtopia
*http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-browse.
php?collection=etree&cat=Billy%20Bragg Concert
downloads at the Internet Archive
*http://www.secondarymandate.org The Secondary
Mandate
*http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=B36z
sa9rgb23f All Music Guide
*http://www.electthelords.org.uk/resources/sites/8
2.165.40.25-4122888fac9365.85165240/Briefings/Brie
fing 1%3A Secondary Mandate.pdf Briefing by the
Elect the Lords Campaign on Secondary Mandate,
(pdf format).
*http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/threemon_articl
e_must_i_paint_you_picture_billy_bragg_interview.h
tm/ Billy Bragg in interview with Three Monkeys
Online Magazine