Allstar Cello Bobbing [youtube video 2m44s] #GrantShowbiz #BillyBragg #DanielMartinMoore #BenSollee #SimonHarlock #neolithic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtDKROXbrfw
Read an ebook sample of this earlier in the week, then found a secondhand copy of the hardback so I could read the rest.
Skiffle, that oddly British post-war bridge to rock and roll and pop, tends to get short shrift in musical discussions, probably because so many of the major stars of the sixties who started out in youthful skiffle groups saw it as suddenly desperately uncool and were keen to distance themselves from the scene. The sample, a surprisingly generous one offering several chapters, made it clear that Bragg wasn't going to treat it as an embarrassment or a novelty, tracing its origins from early New Orleans jazz and the British teens who became obsessed with that, up through the spread of live jug-style bands at a time when the average British kid was hard pressed to afford a proper musical instrument; and of course, without skiffle there wouldn't have been The Beatles.
"You can’t be Elvis if you’re British, but you can be Lonnie Donegan" – Van Morrison
Or as Billy Bragg might say, "This is reality so gimme some room!"
On this day 39 years ago, Labour leader Neil Kinnock had his arm round Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson at the launch of Red Wedge, a campaign to discourage youth apathy in parliamentary politics.
21 November 1985, House of Commons, London.
( Richard Young)
Today in Labor History November 19, 1915: Joe Hill, IWW organizer and song writer was executed by a Utah firing squad after being convicted of murder on trumped-up charges. His final message from prison was “Don’t mourn, Organize!” His ashes were supposedly sprinkled in every state of the union, except Utah, because he had said, "I don't want to be found dead in Utah." They were also sprinkled in Canada, Sweden, Australia and Canada. Some of his most famous songs were “The Preacher and the Slave,” “The Rebel Girl,” “There is Power in a Union,” “Casey Jones, the Union Scab,” and “Mr. Block.” In 1988, an envelope containing his remaining ashes was discovered. Abbie Hoffman suggested that folksinger Billy Bragg should consume them and he supposedly did, washed down, of course, with copious union beer.
Thinking about the time when we went to see Billy Bragg and when the band came on my mate shouted 'Judas'.
Calm is not my spirit animal at the moment, it’s more Woody and Billy…
#CalmWorryWithASongOrPoem #HashtagGames #BillyBragg #WoodyGuthrie
just home from my first ever #BillyBragg show, my heart is bursting! I didn't know his music well, wasn't expecting his charisma. Here are some unforgettable quotes, and these were from between songs! "Music can't change the world, but it can make you believe that the world can be changed." "Music can help us kick cynicism to the kerb." "Music can make you feel empathy, and empathy is what they don't want us to feel, because then we'll recognize that socialism is organized compassion."
Auf #radioeins läuft...
Billy Bragg & Wilco:
California Stars
#NowPlaying #BillyBragg #Wilco
https://theroundedsquares.bandcamp.com/track/the-rounded-squares-billy-bragg-wilco-california-stars