To all and intents and purposes, Billy Bragg is not the most suitable candidate for a typical rock music biography. He obsessively loathes smoking, he's apparently incorruptible, and he has never felt the need to collect rare expensive cars and crash them. It's no surprise, then, that despite his relative lack of high profile pop success, he is wealthy enough to record albums and gig whenever the fancy takes him. A pop star who has never wallowed in the pig-sty of self-publicity and who has never prostrated his own celebrity before his art? Now there's an unusual thing.
Billy Bragg ("pop's political conscience in dilapidated trousers and sensible shoes," according to the multi-hued smartie people at Q magazine) might not fit the Identikit profile of a moderately successful pop artist, but Andrew Collins, himself a former editor of Q, places the so-called Bard of Barking in a context that sheds light on the reasons why.
Born in Barking (then part of Essex, now part of Greater London) on December 20th, 1957, William Bragg first showed his socio-political conscience in public at the age of thirteen when a poem he wrote at school ("This Child" - about Jesus saving the world) was selected by his teacher as good enough to be broadcast on Radio Essex.
From teenage poet to punk rocker, via an epiphany at witnessing The Clash tearing asunder the basic tenets of rock music, William Bragg transformed himself initially into Billy Bonkers. He then formed a band called Riff Raff, released a couple of records that made little or no impact on the pop charts, stifled his rebel yells, and promptly joined the British army.
The solitary 23-year-old fan of Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello felt marooned amidst teenagers who did not have a high literacy rate and an institution that held class distinctions dear to its heart, and after three months basic training he bought himself out. Possibly the only British pop star who has appeared on "Top of the Pops" and deliberately experienced the effects of CS gas, Billy Bragg's social conscience was directly shaped by his short spell in the armed forces.
The rise and rise of Bragg's career from a rudimentary singer/songwriter with just an acoustic guitar and a portable amplifier to the person who, in 1996, was chosen above Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen to write and record music for previously unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics, is sympathetically told in an avuncular style by Andrew Collins.
There isn't much scandal to relate, so it's not a vicarious or voyeuristic read, but as Bragg is clearly a music biographer's dream (articulate, helpful, trusting, not overly intrusive or censorious), the story unfolds in a series of evenly told, detailed vignettes that give a clear picture of one of rock music's most committed political commentators.
The sobriquet "nice bloke" is a rare thing in an industry that a colleague of Bragg's calls "a business awash with weasels on every level". The overriding impression one receives from this engaging, extremely well written book is that Billy Bragg is in a class of his own. An ordinary guy with political suss and a social conscience, he might be conservative with a small "u", but he has managed to fashion a form of popular political song writing that clearly shadows that of Woody Guthrie, his spiritual mentor.
"Warning - This Man Tells the Truth" was a headline used by Melody Maker to introduce Billy Bragg to the population at large. He's still telling it. This book is essential reading for anyone who thinks that pop music is either a redundant or toothless art form.
Tony Clayton-Lea is a freelance journalist and writer
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