BILLY BRAGG & THE BLOKES (band):
Ian McLagan (piano and Hammond organ; ex-Small Faces and The Faces);
Ben Mandelson (lap steel guitar);
Lu Edmonds (electric guitar and vocals);
Martyn Barker (drums);
and Simon Edwards (bass).
Influences
Bob Dylan, The Clash, Motown
MR LOVE & JUSTICE REVIEWS: 'A songsmith at the peak of his powers' - MOJO (4 out of 5 stars)
'The journey from picket line anthem to mid-life confessional has seldom been made with such class' - Daily Mirror (4 out of 5 stars)
'Still concerned about the world, but finding solace in matters of the heart' - The Sun (4 out of 5 stars)
'He can evoke tenderness in a way that doesn’t sound artificially sweetened' - Uncut (4 out of 5 stars)
'England's troubadour turns up trumps with the help of a soulful band' - Observer (4 out of 5 stars)
'[His] voice has undergone a transformation into an altogether more tuneful instrument' - Evening Standard (3 out of 5 stars)
'There is soul and fire a-plenty in this tremendous new album' - ABC Tasmania
Billy Bragg and Kate Nash mash up Foundations/A New England at the NME Awards 2008
Billy Bragg was recently described by The Times newspaper as a national treasure. In the two decades of his career Bragg has certainly become perhaps, the most stalwart guardian of the radical dissenting tradition that stretches back over centuries of the country's political, cultural and social history.
Bragg was born in December 1957. He was thus 19 years old when punk made its indelible contribution to English popular culture, in 1977. Bragg's own particular contribution was to form a band called Riff Raff, which released a series of indie seven-inch singles including the wonderfully titled I Wanna Be a Cosmonaut. Riff Raff eventually split in 1981.
Bragg then briefly joined a tank regiment of the British Army before buying his way out with what he later described as the most wisely spent 175 of his life.
Armed with a guitar, amplifier and voice Bragg launched himself on a solo musical career, ready at a moments notice to fill in as support for almost any act.
His songs are full of passion, anger and wit, with a stark strummed electric guitar and even starker vocals with a keen sense of melody and deeply humane lyrics; a one man Clash.
Releases include Life's a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy which hit the UK Top 30 in early 1984. The album's opening track, The Milkman of Human Kindness, is infused with genuine insight and humour, as well as a sustained and personal commitment to political and humanitarian issues.
His second album, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984), opened with the fierce It Says Here, a strident song of political solidarity. The album went Top 20 in the UK.
Bragg's third album, Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, was released in September 1986. It was his most successful and accomplished release to date, spawning a hit single, Levi Stubbs' Tears, as well as Greetings to the New Brunette, a collaboration with The Smiths guitarist, Johnny Marr. The album was a Top 10 hit.
In September 1988, Bragg released his fourth album, Workers Playtime. More focused on matters of the heart than political issues, the album also saw Bragg move away from the sparse arrangements that had characterised his earlier work. The public approved the album was a Top 20 hit in the UK.
Bragg, however, entered the Nineties with his most political work to date. The Internationale mini-album, released in May 1990, included such tracks as The Marching Song of the Convent Battalions, Nicaraguita and The Red Flag.
The following year, 1991, Bragg issued the critically acclaimed Don't Try This at Home, which reached number eight in the UK chart. With musical contributions from such stellar talents as Johnny Marr and, from REM, Peter Buck and Michael Stipe, the album ranged in themes from personal tragedies to a strident condemnation of racists and football hooligans. Among the songs was the hit single, Sexuality.
Bragg then took time out to concentrate on his family. When he did return, in 1996, the resulting William Bloke album showed Bragg balancing his political and personal commitments, an unsentimental examination of his life and values. The album also marked a return to the stripped-down Bragg, often no more than Billy and his guitar. William Bloke, a Top 20 hit, was to be the last album of Braggs own songs in the Nineties. What followed next, however, was an extraordinary and unexpected project.
Woody Guthrie was the dean of American folk artists, the author of such classics as This Land is Your Land, Pastures of Plenty, Deportees, I Aint Got No Home In This World Any More and Rueben James. His giant influence on the entire course of American popular music, not least Bob Dylan's acknowledgement of his debt to Guthrie, made him one of the seminal artists of the 20th Century. At the time of his death, in 1967, however, Guthrie left behind some 2500 unfinished songs, the lyrics to which were belatedly discovered many years later in the archives.
Guthries daughter, Nora, first became aware of Billy Bragg in 1992, when he performed at New York Citys Summerstage birthday celebration for Woody.
Nora Guthrie decided that Bragg was the perfect candidate to set new music to the unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics. There was no record of any music being written, thus Bragg was given the task of reinventing original Woody Guthrie songs. The lyrics about New York City streets, film star idols, drinking, loving, dying and even spaceships - were specifically chosen because they presented a completely different aspect to Woody Guthries public persona. Braggs role was to provide the musical platform for a previously unexplored Guthrie.
The result was Mermaid Avenue, released in 1998. Bragg's collaborators on the project were American alt-country rockers, Wilco. Recordings began in Wilco's hometown of Chicago and then in Dublin, where English fiddler Eliza Carthy and bluesman Corey Harris made their contributions. Natalie Merchant also added her talents when Bragg was finishing the recordings in Boston.
So much material was recorded during those sessions that Mermaid Avenue Volume II was issued two years later, in 2000. Both albums were nominated for Grammy Awards.
Before the release of that second album, however, Bragg had returned to the road, playing a 1999 UK tour fronting Billy Bragg & The Blokes. Among the band members was the legendary Ian McLagan, the keyboards player with the Small Faces and its later Rod Stewart incarnation, The Faces. The other musicians in The Blokes were Ben Mandelson (lap steel guitar); Lu Edmonds (electric guitar and vocals); Martyn Barker (drums); and Simon Edwards (bass).
The tour worked so well it was inevitable that The Blokes would be a permanent band, playing with Bragg in the U.S. and the rest of Europe.
Just before the last UK General Election, in June 2001, Bragg launched www.votedorset.net, a tactical voting campaign to unseat the Conservative MP in Bragg's Dorset constituency (where he now resides). Bragg also turned his attention to campaigning for reform of the House of Lords the UK's second chamber by writing and publishing A Genuine Expression of the Will of the People, a political pamphlet on the subject. It is available in electronic form from the votedorset website.
Running concurrently with all this political activity, however, Bragg was also working with The Blokes on his new album England, Half English. The album, which explored Braggs notions about identity and Englishness, was released on Monday 4th March, 2002 by sheer coincidence the precise 20th anniversary of Braggs first-ever solo gig, the Sociology Disco at North London Polytechnic on 4th March 1982.
On the 6th October Billy Bragg celebrated his long career with a double-CD retrospective called Must I Paint You A Picture? The album features 40 of the tracks that have defined his music and approach through the years.
Billy released the single 'We Laughed' with Rosetta Life, a song Billy wrote with patients facing life-threatening illness, as part of the Rosetta Requiem project. It is still from Billy's website.
Check out the Billy Bragg online Shop for current and back catalogue albums and boxed sets, T-shirts and other merchandise.
Thanx for being our freind. Love your stuff. We are looking for bands, people etc, to help save lives and relieve suffering. All proceeds from 2010 gigs will go to Casa Alianza Uk, in a recession it is the poorest who are always hit hardest. These kids are no exception, Cheers EAGLE
National Independence Day [Narodowe Święto Niepodległości] is celebrated every year in Poland on 11 November to commemorate the anniversary of Poland's assumption of independent statehood in 1918 after 123 years of partitions by Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia.
If you could, please spare a moment to enjoy the newest work from Oakland-based musician Dave Smallen. His new album titled 'Everything Changes and Nothing Changes' will be available everywhere on December 1st.
Click on the flyer to take a listen:
Listen to Batching It's debut album "Homage" in it's entirety before it is released! CD out in January 2010! Featuring songs by NOFX, Skankin' Pickle, Swingin' Utters, Pearl Jam, Rancid, Lagwagon, Metallica, Sublime, No Use For a Name, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, No Doubt, The Descendents, Less Than Jake and Operation Ivy!
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After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on myspace...
Poem 162 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (please see my blog): TEES TO TYNE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS - SUMMER 2001
Where traditions are not so rare; Sea, country and works scent the air; A multitude of monuments, Planted tubs and patterned pavements.
The longish pedestrian malls; The remnants of defensive walls; Historic buildings are a gauge Of the respect for heritage.
Wheat, rape and pines in the fields; Estuaries guarded by shields; Long sandy beaches and wide scenes; Romantic-ruin go-betweens.
Rivers in parts licked by trees, Or fringed by boat clubs, wharfs, gantries, And crossed by practical delights - Varied spans, forming pleasing sights.
Fine churches headed at Durham; Football kits ad infinitum; Kept castles - one for study; Masonry behind masonry.
And, with moulding-works out that way, It’s somewhere for a longer stay..?
THE ITALIAN TRIBUTE TO JOE STRUMMER 2009 - Edition VI
Body: 10,000 days of rock'n'roll THE ITALIAN TRIBUTE TO JOE STRUMMER 2009 - Edition VI
Saturday, December 12th, 2009 @ Estragon, Via Stalingrad 83, BOLOGNA MySpace: www.myspace.com / tributojoestrummeritalia
. The event is made possible, we want to stress that, also thanks to the fundamental cooperation of the participating bands and a large number of friends - volunteers.
Reaches its VI edition, the Italian Tribute to Joe Strummer, passionate meeting dedicated to the unforgettable leader of the Clash died in December 2002.
Also this year the benefit concert will be held at l 'Estragon di Bologna and this year will be organized and operated in complete autonomy from websites Radioclash.It and Punkadeka.it