![]() ![]() Within months Charisma had been taken over by Virgin Records and Jenner, who had been made redundant, became Bragg's manager. Peel insisted he would have played the song even without the biryani and later played it at the correct speed. Hearing DJ John Peel mention on-air that he was hungry, Bragg rushed to the BBC with a mushroom biryani, so Peel played The Milkman of Human Kindness from Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy albeit at the wrong speed (since the 12" LP was, unconventionally, cut to play at 45rpm). Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (credited to Billy Bragg) was released in July 1983 by Charisma's new imprint, Utility. Bragg got an offer to record more demos for music publisher Chappell & Co., so Jenner agreed to release them as a record. Jenner liked the tape, but the company was near bankruptcy and had no budget to sign new artists. His demo tape initially got no response from the record industry, but by pretending to be a television repair man, he got into the office of Charisma Records' A&R man Peter Jenner. Bragg performing at South by Southwest in 2008 īragg peroxided his hair to mark a new phase in his life and began performing frequent concerts and busking around London, playing solo with an electric guitar under the name Spy vs Spy (after the strip in Mad magazine). After completing three months' basic training, he bought himself out for £175 and returned home. ![]() Taking a series of odd jobs including working at Guy Norris' record shop in Barking high street, Bragg became disillusioned with his stalled music career and in May 1981 joined the British Army as a recruit destined for the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars of the Royal Armoured Corps. After a period of gigging in Northamptonshire and London, they returned to Barking and split in 1980. The band decamped to rural Oundle in Northamptonshire in 1978 to record a series of singles (the first on independent Chiswick Records), which did not receive wide exposure. In 1977, Bragg formed the punk rock/ pub rock band Riff Raff with Wiggy. The experience of the gig and preceding march helped shape Bragg's left-wing politics, having previously "turned a blind eye" to casual racism. He was particularly influenced by the Clash, whom he'd seen play live in London in May 1977 on their White Riot Tour, and again at a Rock Against Racism carnival in April 1978, which he admits was the first time he really stepped into the world of music as it is used for political activism. ĭuring the rise of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, Elvis Costello also served as an inspiration for Bragg. He was also exposed to folk and folk-rock music during his teenage years, citing Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan as early influences on his songwriting. He put his energies into learning and practising the guitar with his next-door neighbour, Philip Wigg (Wiggy) some of their influences were the Faces, Small Faces and the Rolling Stones. However he developed an interest in poetry at the age of twelve, when his English teacher chose him to read a poem he had written for a homework assignment on a local radio station. īragg was educated at Northbury Junior School and Park Modern Secondary School (now part of Barking Abbey Secondary School ) in Barking. Bragg's father died of lung cancer in 1976, and his mother died in 2011. His music is centred on change and activist causes.īragg was born in 1957 in Barking, Essex (which is now in Greater London) to Dennis Frederick Austin Bragg, an assistant sales manager to a Barking cap maker and milliner, and his wife Marie Victoria D'Urso, who was of Italian descent. ![]() His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. ![]()
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