Billy Bragg

Barking to Spy vs Spy

Stephen William Bragg was born on 20 December 1957 in Barking, Essex. At twelve his English teacher chose him to read a poem he had written on a local radio station, and an interest in poetry followed. He learned guitar with his neighbour Philip Wigg, known as Wiggy, and in 1977 the two formed the punk and pub rock band Riff Raff. After a few singles, the first on Chiswick Records, the band split in 1980. In May 1981 Bragg joined the British Army, and after three months of basic training he bought himself out for 175 pounds.

He then peroxided his hair and began playing around London alone with an electric guitar, under the name Spy vs Spy, after the strip in Mad magazine. By posing as a television repair man he got into the office of Charisma Records A&R man Peter Jenner, who liked his demo tape. Charisma was near bankruptcy and had no budget for new artists, so Jenner agreed to release demos Bragg then recorded for the music publisher Chappell. They came out as Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy on its imprint Utility in July 1983. Go! Discs re-released it that November at the low price of 2.99 pounds. It included A New England, later a hit for Kirsty MacColl.

Go! Discs and the miners

Brewing Up with Billy Bragg followed in October 1984 and reached 16 in the UK. In 1985 the Between the Wars EP, whose title track was inspired by the miners' strike, reached 15 and earned him an appearance on Top of the Pops. Proceeds went to the striking miners' fund. He helped form the musicians' alliance Red Wedge and toured with the Style Council in 1986.

Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, released in September 1986, was his first Top 10 album and brought in more musicians than before, among them Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl. It contains Levi Stubbs' Tears and Greetings to the New Brunette. In May 1988 his cover of the Beatles' She's Leaving Home, a shared A-side with Wet Wet Wet, reached Number 1. That September came Workers Playtime, made with a full backing band and including Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards.

Breaking away

Don't Try This at Home, released in September 1991, was meant as a more commercial pop album. Its single Sexuality, co-written with Johnny Marr, reached 27 in the UK. The more commercial sound and aggressive marketing had no appreciable effect on album sales. After a 13-month world tour with a full band, the Red Stars, Bragg left Go! Discs in the summer of 1992, repaying the rest of his advance in return for all rights to his back catalogue. After taking time off to help raise his son, he released the simpler William Bloke in 1996.

Woody Guthrie and England

In the mid-1990s Nora Guthrie, daughter of Woody Guthrie, asked Bragg to put music to her father's unrecorded lyrics. With Wilco and Natalie Merchant he made Mermaid Avenue, released in 1998, which was nominated for a Grammy and followed by a second volume in 2000. A rift with Wilco over the mixing and sequencing of the first album led Bragg to recruit his own band, the Blokes, to promote it live. His 2002 album England, Half-English, with the Blokes, took on English identity, and its single Take Down the Union Jack reached 22 and put him back on Top of the Pops.

In 2007 he founded Jail Guitar Doors to supply instruments to prisons. He curated the Leftfield stage at Glastonbury from 2010. Tooth & Nail, recorded in five days at Joe Henry's home studio in South Pasadena, appeared in 2013, and the two men made Shine a Light on a train journey between Chicago and Los Angeles in 2016. In 2018 he accepted the PRS Outstanding Contribution to British Music award at the Ivor Novello Awards, and in 2023 he marked forty years of performing with the Roaring Forty compilations and tour.