Billy Bragg: Performance Perspectives Clinic

Billy Bragg was described by The Times newspaper as a "national treasure." In the two and a half decades of his career Bragg has certainly made an indelible mark on the conscience of British music, becoming 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 19 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, who released a series of indie seven-inch singles including I Wanna Be a Cosmonaut.

True cultural significance, however, was to escape Riff Raff, who eventually split in 1981. Perhaps remarkably, given Bragg’s punk antecedents, he 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.

Between time working in a record store, and absorbing his new-found love of blues and politically-inspired folk music, Bragg launched a solo musical career. Armed with a guitar, amplifier, and voice, he undertook a maverick tour of the concert halls and clubs of Britain, ready at a moment’s notice to fill in as support for almost any act. Read more about Bragg.