This book, which feels like a labour of love on all parts, compiles 700 fan memories into a chronological community narrative of Billy Bragg’s life and influence. From his start in Barking, Essex, through the founding of his early band Riff Raff, the punk and post-punk scenes of the late 1970s and early 1980s, his solo breakthrough with “Life’s a Riot with Spy vs Spy” in 1983, and into the era of Red Wedge and his enduring role as a politically engaged singer-songwriter.
The memoir opens with a foreword by Phill Jupitus (Porky the Poet), as well as reminiscences from Bragg, his childhood friend Wiggy, bandmates, and managers (notably Pete Jenner). We kick off the reminiscences with a piece called “Buying The Ampeg.”
While it is structured as a timeline of Bragg’s life and career, it is more than a standard biography. Through the hundreds of fans contributing recollections of early gigs, chance meetings, Billy’s support for miners and trade unions, benefit concerts, and the impact of his lyrics and politics on personal lives, it knots together the sociopolitical backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain, the miners’ strike, punk rock’s egalitarian ethos, and is one of the best pictures yet of how activism came to be such a huge part of the British music scene in the early ’80s.
As a piece of historiography, the inclusion of direct contributions from Bragg himself, his family, friends, managers, and music industry figures, gives a true flavour of the times. The voices shift over time as people drop out of or enter his life. While the world at large will always think of Bragg’s key position in left-wing politics and music, the book is far more than a polemic. There is inevitably a focus on the 80s, Brian Baneham’s reflection on the Rage Against Racism Carnival in May 1994, supplements Bragg’s own recollections and clearly shows that his influence didn’t diminish with the new decade.
The insights into the everyday realities and atmosphere of gigs, both small and large, in the UK and internationally, with stories of spontaneous performances, audience participation, and interactions with well-known musicians and activists, set the book up as a far better source of understanding than most artist biographies which just end up as a treadmill of album, tour, crisis, redemption. The collage of stories, emails, letters, and interviews, presented in the speakers’ own words, makes for authenticity and a clear emotional resonance and connection with Bragg, his music and his activism. The firsthand accounts vary in tone from warm, irreverent, and reflective, giving the sense of community and shared experience which Bragg has always managed to bring to his work.
The latter parts of the book are more about musical recollection than those concerned with the 80s, but that is just how life evolves. So many pieces start with “I first heard Billy in 1986” or something similar. The longevity of his relationship with his audience is one of the most interesting aspects of this format. We end in 2024 and complete the circle with a few personal reflections from long-time associates.
This isn’t a book you can take in one sitting, but is best read with Bragg’s music to hand and dipped into to learn about his and others’ thoughts and feelings at the time.
Where my journey with Billy Bragg started…
And one of the places it took me…
