Billy Bragg
But a lot’s happened in his world and ours since 1991, when he released the more complex Don’t Try This at Home, the last album before fatherhood and the new William Bloke. For starters, as he grinned to his audience last week, the caprice of political correctness has slapped a new multiculti label on his trademark cockney brogue: he now speaks in “estuary English.” He crowed over his new son Jack and Jack’s mom, Juliet.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The last time Billy Bragg had a new album out, the U.S. had a Republican country-club president and a Supreme Court nominee who was distasteful on many levels to many Americans but not to enough senators. We even had a war. And Bragg was taking notes for his act, delivered sometimes with humor and sometimes with righteous anger. But that, as he once put it in song, was bloody yesterday.
“You still have the power to vote,” he reminded us as he left the stage. “Even as the major parties continue to let us down.”
Billy: Remember, when you make a record, you are making a record for all of us. Please be more careful this time.
