Concert Preview
Billy Bragg
Nov. 28, Burton Cummings Theatre
w/ Ron Hawkins



It's the day before England plays Brazil in a 'friendly' soccer match in Qatar and Billy Bragg, the quintessential English bloke, is wondering aloud how he'll see the match in St. John's, Nfld.
"Even if it's a friendly, it's England," he says. "You've got to watch."
While association football has never been the focus of Bragg's material, all other things English have often been the focus of his best songs.
The 51-year-old troubadour came of age in and around London in the halcyon days of punk and first made his name in the early '80s with a series of solo, electric-guitar-and-voice EPs that openly questioned Maggie Thatcher's U.K. government and which plaintively asked where society's compassion had gone.
Nearly 30 years on, Bragg is still fighting the good fight. Along the way he's witnessed the end of the Cold War, the rise and fall of Britain's New Labour and The Third Way, seen two American-led 'wars on terror' and cringed through the presidencies of two George Bushes. Because of his endless activism and his loquacious willingess to speak intelligently on real issues, Bragg has always been regarded as a 'political' artist, a label that can sometimes limit a performer's appeal - or sour expectations when he or she doesn't do what's expected.
Consider Mr. Love and Justice, Bragg's most recent recording (and the reason for his current Canadian tour). The album is a heartfelt collection of songs about what it means to be a loving husband, father to a teenage boy and a man struggling to reconcile mid-life comfort with the burning issues of the day. Many, many songwriters would be thrilled to craft such a refined and mature work, but Bragg has been called 'soft' by those who would prefer that he unceasingly storm the barricades with polemical songs about human rights and political injustice.
"It's just what came about when I was finished doing the book (his 2006 autobiography, A Progressive Patriot)," Bragg explains. "That was a long, hard and very rigorous polemical process - getting down exactly how I felt about who I am and what I think and why I think it.
"It only seemed natural that love songs are what came afterwards. And they came quite quickly, too."
Because he is who he is, Bragg hasn't been content to simply write a book, record a new album and tour over the past four or so years. He's also become the prime mover behind Jail Guitar Doors, a program named for an old Clash song that provides guitars to prisoners in U.K. institutions. Bragg was first contacted by a corrections officer who was having trouble getting access to an instrument for a prisoner. A couple of years on, he has a full-fledged music-in-prisons campaign going, supported by Mick Jones and Topper Headon, former guitarist and drummer, respectively, with his punk rock heroes, The Clash.
Earlier this fall, Breaking Rocks, a film telling the story of Jail Guitar Doors was released and launched in London at an event featuring performances by Bragg, Jones, Headon and a couple of beneficiaries of the guitars program who have since been released from prison.
Asked if younger inmates know who he is when he visits U.K. prisons, Bragg snorts with laughter.
"Haven't got a clue," he says. "No idea at all. So I don't go in to jails and do just my stuff. I play some standards, some Beatles, some Johnny Cash, some Bob Marley.
"Redemption Song certainly seems to go over well - unsurprisingly, I think."
Bragg's stay in Winnipeg on this tour is a three-day affair. On Thursday night, Nov. 26, he's being honoured with an Artistic Achievement award at the Winnipeg Folk Festival's Winter Wassail fundraiser. After a day off Friday, he's onstage at the Theatre formerly known as the Walker for a full-on public show.
"I've loved the festival when I've had the chance to play it and it's got a great progressive reputation," he says. "I'm quite looking forward to it."