149-579: Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music , punk rock and protest songs , with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes. Bragg was born in 1957 in Barking , Essex (later part of Greater London) to Dennis Frederick Austin Bragg, an assistant sales manager to
298-473: A brass band . The album paid tribute to one of Bragg's influences with the song, "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night", which is an adapted version of Earl Robinson 's song, " I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night ", itself an adaptation of a poem by Alfred Hayes . Though the album only reached Number 34 in the UK Albums Chart, Bragg described it as "a reassertion of my rights as an individual... and
447-482: A chuigushou . Ensembles consisting of mouth organs ( sheng ), shawms ( suona ), flutes ( dizi ) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs ) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an , Wutai shan and Tianjin . Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument
596-619: A pipa , as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with love-stricken people. Further south, in Shantou , Hakka and Chaozhou , zheng ensembles are popular. Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou , as well as elsewhere along
745-474: A tune is a short instrumental piece , a melody , often with repeating sections , and usually played a number of times. A collection of tunes with structural similarities is known as a tune-family . America's Musical Landscape says "the most common form for tunes in folk music is AABB, also known as binary form ." In some traditions, tunes may be strung together in medleys or " sets ." Throughout most of human history, listening to recorded music
894-403: A "Fascist racist" and saying "when you're gone from this borough, we will rebuild this community". The BNP came third on election day. In January 2011, news sources reported that 20 to 30 residents of Bragg's Dorset village, Burton Bradstock , had received anonymous letters viciously attacking him and his politics, and urging residents to oppose him in the village. He claimed that a BNP supporter
1043-512: A "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer-songwriters, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan , who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music. Traditional folk music often includes sung words , although folk instrumental music occurs commonly in dance music traditions. Narrative verse looms large in
1192-511: A Barking cap maker and milliner, and his wife Marie Victoria D'Urso, who was of Italian descent through her father. Bragg's father died of lung cancer in 1976, and his mother died in 2011. Bragg was educated at Northbury Junior School and Park Modern Secondary School (now part of Barking Abbey Secondary School ) in Barking. He failed his eleven-plus exam . He developed an interest in poetry at age twelve, when his English teacher chose him to read
1341-463: A childish two fingers [to Go! Discs boss Andy Macdonald, who'd recently signed a distribution deal with entertainment industry giant PolyGram]". His sixth studio album Don't Try This at Home was recorded in the shadow of the build-up to the Gulf War and subsequent ground war, inspiring the track "Rumours of War". Although there is social comment ("The Few", "North Sea Bubble"), it was intended as
1490-401: A class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working-class Americans joined with the ethnically , racially , and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of
1639-519: A compilation series entitled The Roaring Forty (1983–2023) to commemorate 40 years of performing music. These included a single LP compilation of 13 tracks, a triple-LP/double-CD of 40 tracks and a 14-disc CD box set of some 300 songs. He later announced the Roaring Forty tour, which took place across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe from September to December 2023. In August 2023, Bragg shared
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#17327811398021788-473: A connection with Virgin, and some UK and European Virgin albums that were distributed internationally (instead of being manufactured in each country) named Caroline as their American distributor. Some Caroline records bore the label name Caroline Blue Plate , which was mainly used for reissuing on CD many early progressive rock albums and artists from Virgin and Caroline's UK branches. The first Canadian editions were distributed by WEA, and were parallel issues of
1937-673: A consortium led by Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquired EMI Music Publishing for $ 2.2 billion. However, the European Union ruled that Sony/ATV would represent over half of all the charting hits in the United Kingdom, and required the company to auction off Virgin Music and Famous Music UK, as well as twelve unrelated authors. In December 2012, BMG Rights Management acquired the Virgin and Famous publishers, and concluded
2086-548: A four-album deal for a million pound advance; in return he would promote the album with singles and videos. A more commercial sound and aggressive marketing had no appreciable effect on album sales, and after a grueling, 13-month world tour with a full band (the Red Stars, led by Wiggy), and a period of forced convalescence after appendicitis , Bragg left Go! Discs in summer 1992, paying back the remainder of his advance in return for all rights to his back catalogue. Bragg released
2235-456: A full backing band and accompaniment, including Tivey on piano, Danny Thompson on double bass and veteran Micky Waller on drums. Wiggy earned a co-production credit with Joe Boyd . In August 1989 Bragg took lead vocal on Norman Cook 's UK top 40 hit "Won't Talk About It", which sampled Bragg's song " Levi Stubbs' Tears " and was a double-A-side with "Blame It On the Bassline". The track
2384-587: A great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp campaigned with some success to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children in hopes of reviving and prolonging the popularity of those songs. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive four-volume collection of
2533-568: A history of the British skiffle movement, tracing the form from its 1950s boom back to ragtime , blues , jazz and American folk music . On BBC Music Day 2017, he helped unveil a blue plaque marking the studio (Trident) where the late David Bowie recorded two classic albums and the single " Space Oddity ", in Soho ; he joined album sleeve designer George Underwood and BBC Radio London 's Robert Elms . In November, he released all six tracks from
2682-1060: A journey between Chicago and Los Angeles by train in March. It reached number 28 in the UK Albums Chart and number one in the UK Americana album chart. The pair started a dual Shine a Light tour at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville in September 2016, and taking them across the States and Canada, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In April 2017, they played in Australia. Faber published Bragg's second nonfiction book (after 2006's The Progressive Patriot ), Roots, Radicals and Rockers in June 2016,
2831-718: A member of Bragg's boyhood heroes the Faces . The documentary film Man in the Sand depicted the roles of Nora Guthrie, Bragg, and Wilco in the creation of the Mermaid Avenue albums. A developing interest in English national identity , driven by the rise of the BNP and his own move from London to rural Dorset in 1999, informed his 2002 album England, Half-English (whose single, "Take Down The Union Jack" put him back on Top of
2980-557: A more commercial pop album, released in September 1991. (Bragg called it "a very long-range attempt to convert the ball between the posts".). The first single was the upbeat " Sexuality ", which, despite an accessible video and a dance remix on the B-side, only reached Number 27 on the UK Singles Chart. Following overtures by rival label Chrysalis , Bragg and Jenner had been persuaded by Go! Discs' Andy and Juliet Macdonald to sign
3129-432: A new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to
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#17327811398023278-450: A new phase in his life and began performing frequent concerts and busking around London, playing solo with an electric guitar under the name Spy vs Spy (after the strip in Mad magazine). His demo tape initially got no response from the record industry, but by pretending to be a television repair man, he got into the office of Charisma Records ' A&R man Peter Jenner . Jenner liked
3427-566: A new single entitled "Rich Men Earning North of a Million". The solo track was quickly written and recorded as an answer song to American country musician Oliver Anthony 's song " Rich Men North of Richmond ". For all of Bragg's 30-year-plus recording career, he has been involved with grassroots, broadly leftist, political movements, and this is often reflected in his lyrics. He has also recorded and performed cover versions of socialist anthems such as " The Internationale " and " The Red Flag ". Bragg said in an interview: "I don't mind being labelled
3576-582: A one-off evening of music and conversation to mark his 50th birthday at London's South Bank . The album was released in March 2008, the second Bragg album to be named after a book by Colin MacInnes after England, Half-English . The same year, during the NME Awards ceremony, Bragg sang a duet with British solo act Kate Nash . They mixed up two of their greatest hits, Nash playing " Foundations ", and Bragg redoing "A New England". Also in 2008, Bragg played
3725-404: A particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book The American Songbag . Rachel Donaldson, a historian who worked for Vanderbilt, later stated this about The American Songbird in her analysis of the folk music revival. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added
3874-814: A period of gigging in Northamptonshire and London, they returned to Barking and split in 1980. Taking a series of odd jobs including working at Guy Norris' record shop in Barking high street, Bragg became disillusioned with his stalled music career and in May 1981 joined the British Army as a recruit destined for the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars of the Royal Armoured Corps . After completing three months' basic training , he bought himself out for £175 and returned home. Bragg peroxided his hair to mark
4023-492: A poem he had written for a homework assignment on a local radio station. He focused on learning and practising the guitar with his next-door neighbour, Philip Wigg (Wiggy). Some of their influences were the Faces , Small Faces and the Rolling Stones . He was also exposed to folk and folk-rock music during his teenage years, citing Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan as early influences on his songwriting. During
4172-500: A political songwriter. The thing that troubles me is being dismissed as a political songwriter". Bragg has cited the Clash as a strong influence on his politically themed material and activism: It wasn't so much their lyrics as what they stood for and the actions they took. That became really important to me. Phil Collins might write a song about the homeless , but if he doesn't have the action to go with it he's just exploiting that for
4321-695: A possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression. Woody Guthrie exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook. Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s. President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House , and often patronized folk festivals. One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott 's National Folk Festival , established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934. Under
4470-567: A protest against the Royal Bank of Scotland 's plan to pay bonuses of approximately £1,500,000,000 to staff in its investment banking business. Bragg set up a Facebook group, made appearances on radio and television news programmes, and made a speech at Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park saying, "Millions are already facing stark choices: are they willing to work longer hours for less money, or would they rather be unemployed? I don't see why
4619-466: A purple label with round logo up to 1992 when Virgin was acquired internationally. Soon after Virgin Records was founded, the label created a music publisher for its artists, who also served as songwriters. Starting in the 1980s, Virgin Music signed songwriters from other record labels. After Virgin was acquired by EMI, the publisher was folded into EMI Music Publishing as EMI Virgin Music. In 2012,
Billy Bragg - Misplaced Pages Continue
4768-621: A reference to beautiful women, while in the past they were notorious for their erotic content. The village "mountain songs" ( shan'ge ) of Jiangsu province were also well known for their amorous themes. Other regional song traditions include the "strummed lyrics" ( tanci ) of the Lower Yangtze Delta, the Cantonese Wooden Fish tradition ( muyu or muk-yu ) and the Drum Songs ( guci ) of north China. In
4917-553: A revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms. The earliest American folk music scholars were with the American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music , but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through
5066-572: A series of "radio shows" on Spotify , in which he talked listeners through self-curated playlists of "his favourite tracks and artists, and uncovering some little-known musical gems". On 14 April 2014, Bragg put out Live at the Union Chapel , a souvenir album and DVD of a show he played on 5 June 2013 at the Union Chapel in London, featuring songs from Tooth & Nail as well as favourites from his back catalogue. In February 2016, Bragg
5215-527: A short Labour Party -sponsored Jobs For Youth tour, he joined other like-minded activists in the public eye to form the musicians' alliance Red Wedge , which promoted Labour's cause – and in turn lobbied the party on youth issues – in the run-up to the 1987 general election , with a national tour in 1986 alongside the Style Council , Jerry Dammers and the Communards . Bragg travelled twice to
5364-479: A simple distinction of economic class yet for him, true folk music was, in Charles Seeger 's words, "associated with a lower class" in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms, folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'." Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although
5513-616: A small role in Stuart Bamforth's film A13: Road Movie . In 2009, Bragg was invited by London's South Bank to write new lyrics for " Ode to Joy ", the final movement of Beethoven 's Ninth Symphony (original libretto by Friedrich Schiller ), since adopted as an international anthem of unity. The London Philharmonic Orchestra performed it at the Royal Festival Hall in front of Queen Elizabeth II , whom Bragg met afterwards to earn "brownie points" with his mother, who
5662-471: A subject. I got that from the Clash, and I try to remain true to that tradition as best I can. Bragg's politics were focused by the Conservative Party 's 144-seat majority landslide at the 1983 general election . He told his biographer, "By 1983, the scales had fallen from my eyes". His record label boss Andy Macdonald observed that "his presence onstage took on more of the avenging angel". Bragg
5811-567: A traditional song would undergo a process of improvement akin to biological natural selection : only those new variants that were the most appealing to ordinary singers would be picked up by others and transmitted onward in time. Thus, over time we would expect each traditional song to become more aesthetically appealing, due to incremental community improvement. Literary interest in the popular ballad form dates back at least to Thomas Percy and William Wordsworth . English Elizabethan and Stuart composers had often evolved their music from folk themes,
5960-434: A tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes , children's songs and nonsense verse used to amuse or quiet children also are frequent subjects of traditional songs. Music transmitted by word of mouth through a community, in time, develops many variants, since this transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. In addition, folk singers may choose to modify
6109-555: A young naked woman in mirror image with a large long-tailed lizard and the word "Virgin" in Dean's familiar script. A variation on the logo was used for the spin-off Caroline Records label. The first release on the label was the progressive rock album Tubular Bells by multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield , who was discovered by Tom Newman and brought to Simon Draper – who eventually persuaded Richard and Nik to present it as their first release in 1973, produced by Tom Newman, for which
Billy Bragg - Misplaced Pages Continue
6258-570: Is a 1987 collection of his first three releases: Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy , Brewing Up with Billy Bragg , and Between the Wars . He enjoyed his only Number 1 hit single in May 1988, a cover of the Beatles ' " She's Leaving Home ", a shared A-side with Wet Wet Wet 's " With a Little Help from My Friends ". Both were taken from a multi-artist re-recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band titled Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father coordinated by
6407-407: Is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group . They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson , Simon Draper, Nik Powell , and musician Tom Newman . They grew to be a worldwide success over time, with the success of platinum performers Paula Abdul , Janet Jackson , Devo , Tangerine Dream , Genesis , Phil Collins , OMD ,
6556-595: Is a supporter of a multi-racial Britain. As a result, he has conflicted with far-right groups such as the British National Party (BNP). In a 2004 The Guardian article, Bragg was quoted as saying: The British National Party would probably make it into a parliament elected by proportional representation , too. It would shine a torch into the dirty little corner where the BNP defecate on our democracy, and that would be much more powerful than duffing them up in
6705-408: Is an ancient folk song from India, a country of Asia, of Meiteis of Manipur , that is an example of Asian folk music, and how they put it into its own genre. Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale . Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona , and apercussive ensembles called
6854-530: Is generally no "authoritative" version of song. Researchers in traditional songs have encountered countless versions of the Barbara Allen ballad throughout the English-speaking world, and these versions often differ greatly from each other. The original is not known; many versions can lay an equal claim to authenticity. Influential folklorist Cecil Sharp felt that these competing variants of
7003-527: Is impossible," he said. At the time of the 2001 general election , Bragg promoted tactical voting in an attempt to unseat Conservative Party candidates in his adopted home county Dorset , particularly in South Dorset and West Dorset . The Conservatives did narrowly lose South Dorset to the Labour Party. Bragg has been an opponent of fascism, racism, bigotry , sexism and homophobia , and
7152-417: Is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore , or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century,
7301-416: Is referenced in the song "Upfield"). Around that time, Nora Guthrie (daughter of American folk artist Woody Guthrie ) asked Bragg to set some of her father's unrecorded lyrics to music. The result was a collaboration with the band Wilco and Natalie Merchant (with whom Bragg had worked previously). They released the album Mermaid Avenue in 1998, and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000. The first album
7450-486: Is simply "Folk music is what the people sing." For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók , there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of the town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived)," particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favor of
7599-402: Is the sheng , a type of Chinese pipe , an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion . Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band. In southern Fujian and Taiwan , Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and
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#17327811398027748-672: Is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" at the library of Congress. Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions . The music and dance forms of the African diaspora , including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca , calypso and Zouk ; and Latin American music genres like
7897-475: Is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. Some do not even agree that the term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission ...
8046-523: Is used for political activism. The experience of the gig and preceding march helped shape Bragg's left-wing politics, a change from his having previously "turned a blind eye" to casual racism. In 1977, Bragg formed the punk rock / pub rock band Riff Raff with Wiggy. The band decamped to rural Oundle in Northamptonshire in 1978 to record a series of singles (the first on independent Chiswick Records ), which did not receive wide exposure. After
8195-509: The NME in aid of the charity Childline . Wet Wet Wet's cover dominated radio airplay and its video was shown over four consecutive weeks on Top of the Pops ; on the single's first week at number one, Bragg also went on the programme to play his cover, with regular accompanist Cara Tivey on piano. Bragg released his fourth album, Workers Playtime , in September 1988. With this album, Bragg added
8344-732: The Bush Theatre 's 2011 project Sixty-Six Books , where he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible . Bragg performed a set of the Guthrie songs that he had set to music for Mermaid Avenue during the Hay Literary Festival in June 2012, he also performed the same set on the Friday night of the 2012 Cambridge Folk Festival. On 18 March 2013, five years after Mr. Love & Justice , Bragg released
8493-474: The Great Depression . Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements. Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans, and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as
8642-752: The PRC . Folk songs have been recorded since ancient times in China. The term Yuefu was used for a broad range of songs such as ballads, laments, folk songs, love songs, and songs performed at court. China is a vast country, with a multiplicity of linguistic and geographic regions. Folk songs are categorized by geographic region, language type, ethnicity, social function (e.g. work song, ritual song, courting song) and musical type. Modern anthologies collected by Chinese folklorists distinguish between traditional songs, revolutionary songs, and newly invented songs. The songs of northwest China are known as "flower songs" ( hua'er ),
8791-481: The Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example: Musical types include: The classical Sinhalese orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance. The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers' feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect
8940-650: The mini-album Bridges Not Walls as downloads through the Billy Bragg website, followed by the single, "Full English Brexit" through Cooking Vinyl. In April 2018, Bragg was invited to deliver a Bank of England Flagship Seminar; his presentation was titled Accountability: the Antidote to Authoritarianism . The speech was made available on the Bank of England's website. At the Ivor Novello Awards (
9089-439: The samba , Cuban rumba , salsa ; and other clave (rhythm) -based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of enslaved Africans , which has in turn influenced African popular music . Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art /court/classical styles and "folk" music. For example, the late Alam Lohar is an example of a South Asian singer who was classified as a folk singer. Khunung Eshei/Khuland Eshei
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#17327811398029238-579: The "Virgin Classics" name, along with "EMI Classics," disappeared. Branson and Powell had initially run a small record shop called Virgin Records and Tapes on Notting Hill Gate , London, specializing in krautrock imports, and offering bean bags and free vegetarian food for the benefit of customers listening to the music on offer. The first real store was above a shoe shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street . After making
9387-793: The 1980s was Culture Club. In 1978, Virgin set up US operations first in New York on Perry Street, with distribution from Atlantic Records . Virgin Records soon moved operations to New Jersey along with a short-lived subdivision called Virgin International , handled by independent New Jersey–based distributor Jem Records . Virgin International was used mainly for progressive rock artists and reissues of earlier Virgin / Atlantic albums such as Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Fish Rising by Steve Hillage, which Columbia chose not to reissue. Virgin International also issued albums by some of Virgin's reggae artists, including Gregory Isaacs . At
9536-432: The American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity". Prior to the 1930s, the study of folk music was primarily the province of scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to
9685-575: The Association for Cultural Equity, is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax's prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) —
9834-446: The BBC TV programme Great Journeys in 1989, in which they travelled the Silver Road from Potosí , Bolivia, to the Pacific coast at Arica , Chile.) Though never released as a Bragg single, album track and live favourite " A New England ", with an additional verse, became a Top 10 hit in the UK for Kirsty MacColl in January 1985. Since MacColl's early death, Bragg always sings the extra verse live in her honour. In 1984, Bragg toured
9983-504: The BBC with a mushroom biryani , so Peel played "The Milkman of Human Kindness" from Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy albeit at the wrong speed (since the 12" LP was, unconventionally, cut to play at 45rpm). Peel insisted he would have played the song even without the biryani and later played it at the correct speed. Within months Charisma had been taken over by Virgin Records and Jenner, who had been made redundant, became Bragg's manager . Stiff Records ' press officer Andy Macdonald – who
10132-537: The EMI Group. In 1997, Virgin absorbed the remainder of EMI USA , which earlier consolidated EMI America Records and Manhattan Records , with Capitol Records acquiring EMI's other American operations, and in 1998, opened a country music division called Virgin Records Nashville, of which record producer Scott Hendricks was president. The label's signees comprised Julie Reeves , Jerry Kilgore , Roy D. Mercer , Tom Mabe , Chris Cagle , Clay Davidson , and River Road . In 2001, Virgin Nashville closed and its roster
10281-438: The Human League , Culture Club , Simple Minds , the Spice Girls , Lenny Kravitz , the Sex Pistols , and Mike Oldfield among others, meaning that by the time it was sold, it was regarded as a major label, alongside other large international independents such as A&M and Island Records . Virgin Records was sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. EMI would later be acquired by Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2012 with UMG creating
10430-437: The Italians , The Human League (whose " Don't You Want Me " was the label's first chart-topping single, in 1981), Magazine , Skids , the Motors , Penetration , the Ruts , Shooting Star , Simple Minds , and XTC . After modified versions of the twins label came the red, white and blue design introduced in 1975, which coincided with the height of punk and new wave. The current Virgin logo (known informally as "the scrawl")
10579-446: The Ivors ) in May, he accepted the PRS Outstanding Contribution to British Music award. Also in May, his official biography Still Suitable for Miners was published in a new, 20th anniversary updated edition. Bragg ended 2018 touring New Zealand and Australia. During his shows in Auckland , Bragg road-tested a new live format for 2019 that he had first tried out in Toronto , which became the One Step Forward, Two Steps Back tour. On
10728-539: The Melody Makers , Redhead Kingpin & The F.B.I. , Neneh Cherry , Steve Winwood , Hindsight and, after her MCA contract ran out in 1991, Belinda Carlisle. Virgin Records America's releases were distributed through WEA again by Atlantic Records until 1992. The label was then acquired by EMI-Capitol Special Markets . In 1996, Virgin Records offered Janet Jackson one of the best and highest deals at
10877-745: The Muffins and Nash the Slash signed to Dindisc in the UK as well; both artists had releases in Canada and the UK on Dindisc. In 1983, an independent Virgin Records Canada Inc. company was created, three years before a similar move occurred in the US. From this time onward, Virgin Canada used unique label designs not seen in other countries: a red label with five horizontal bars across the top and an extra-large "scrawl" logo from 1983 to 1985, followed by
11026-709: The Pops in the Queen's Golden Jubilee year) and his 2006 book The Progressive Patriot . The book expressed his view that English socialists can reclaim patriotism from the right wing. He draws on Victorian poet Rudyard Kipling for an inclusive sense of Englishness. In 2007 Bragg moved closer to his English folk music roots by joining the WOMAD -inspired collective The Imagined Village , who recorded an album of updated versions of traditional English songs and dances and toured through that autumn. In December, Bragg previewed tracks from his forthcoming album Mr. Love & Justice at
11175-706: The Pops , singing the title track. Bragg later collaborated with Rosselson on the song "Ballad of a Spycatcher". In the same year, he embarked on his first tour of North America, with Wiggy as tour manager, supporting Echo & the Bunnymen . The tour began in Washington, D.C., and ended in Los Angeles. On the same trip, in New York, Bragg unveiled his "Portastack", a self-contained, mobile PA system weighing 35 lbs (designed for £500 by engineer Kenny Jones),
11324-550: The Respect Party's only MP. At the NME Awards in 2007, on the fifth anniversary of Joe Strummer 's death, Bragg founded Jail Guitar Doors (taking its name from a song by the Clash ), an organisation aimed at supplying instruments to prisons and encouraging prisoners to address problems in a non-confrontational way. An American chapter of the organisation was launched in 2009 by MC5 's Wayne Kramer . In January 2010, Bragg stated his intention to withhold his income tax as
11473-978: The Soviet Union in 1986, the year Mikhail Gorbachev started to promote the policies of perestroika and glasnost . He played a gig in Leningrad , and the Festival of Song in the Struggle for Peace in Kyiv . On 12 June 1987, the night after Labour lost that year's general election, Bragg appeared on a notable edition of the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark , alongside David Selbourne , Teresa Gorman and Hilary Hook among others. The Independent wrote "A show called Is Britain Working? brought together victorious Tory MP Teresa Gorman; ... Helen from
11622-579: The Stonehenge Convoy ; old colonialist Colonel Hilary Hook... and Adrian, one of the jobless. It was a perfect example of the chemistry you can get. There were unlikely alliances (Bragg and Hook)". Later Gorman "stormed off the set, claiming she had been misled about the nature of the programme" "She told... Bragg: 'You and your kind are finished. We are the future now.'" Bragg said "I sing in smokey rooms every night and I can keep talking for far longer than you can Teresa". Bragg explained later: "She
11771-577: The UK supporting the Style Council . Later the same year he released Brewing Up with Billy Bragg , a mixture of political songs (e.g. "It Says Here") and songs of unrequited love (e.g. "The Saturday Boy"). This was followed in 1985 by Between the Wars , an EP of political songs that included a cover version of Leon Rosselson 's "The World Turned Upside Down". The EP made the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart and earned Bragg an appearance on Top of
11920-630: The Virgin EMI Records division. The Virgin Records name continues to be used by UMG in certain markets such as Germany and Japan. Virgin Records America, Inc. was the company's North American operations founded in 1986. They are no longer active and were headquartered in Hollywood , California , and operated under the Capitol Music Group imprint, now also owned by UMG, since 2012. The US operations had also taken on
12069-446: The album William Bloke in 1996 after taking time off to help new partner Juliet Wills raise their son Jack. (There is a reference to him in the track "Brickbat": "Now you'll find me with the baby, in the bathroom".) After the ambitious instrumentation of Don't Try This at Home , it was a simpler record, musically, more personal and even spiritual, lyrically (its title a pun on the name of 18th-century English poet William Blake , who
12218-586: The album sold over 60,000 copies and also reached number 12 in the charts, though it was later redacted its spot on the grounds of the cover price. Other early albums include Gong 's Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible, Pt. 1) , which Daevid Allen has been quoted as having never been paid for. The first single release for the label was Kevin Coyne 's "Marlene" (b/w "Everybody Says"), taken from his album Marjory Razorblade and released in August 1973. Coyne
12367-533: The bankers at RBS shouldn't be asked the same". In the 2010 general election , Bragg supported the Liberal Democrats because "they've got the best manifesto". Bragg was also very active in his hometown of Barking as part of Searchlight magazine's Hope not Hate campaign, where the BNP's leader Nick Griffin was standing for election. At one point during the campaign Bragg squared up to BNP London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook , calling him
12516-465: The classical suite was based upon stylised folk-dances, and Joseph Haydn 's use of folk melodies is noted. But the emergence of the term "folk" coincided with an "outburst of national feeling all over Europe" that was particularly strong at the edges of Europe, where national identity was most asserted. Nationalist composers emerged in Central Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and Britain:
12665-479: The complex rhythms of the drum beat. This drum beat may seem simple on the first hearing but it takes a long time to master the intricate rhythms and variations, which the drummer sometimes can bring to a crescendo of intensity. There are six common types of drums falling within 3 styles (one-faced, two-faced, and flat-faced): Other instruments include: Virgin Records Virgin Records
12814-530: The deal in May 2013. Virgin Music was renamed BMG VM Music, while Famous Music became BMG FM Music. Before its demise, Virgin Music's songwriters included Iggy Pop , Texas , Ozzy Osbourne , Cannibal Corpse , Nirvana , Winger , Wax , Tears for Fears , The Prodigy , Goo Goo Dolls , Tool , The Crystal Method , Terence Trent D'Arby , Lenny Kravitz , Ben Harper , Warrant , Mark Ronson , Devo , Culture Club , Take That , Bullet for My Valentine , Robbie Williams , Wayne Hector , Orchestral Manoeuvres in
12963-546: The elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment. The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique. The traditional drama, music and songs of Sinhala Light Music are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings feature birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers, and trees, and
13112-481: The end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement. Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (1922–2015) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence,
13261-505: The fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy , the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". One widely used definition
13410-401: The fledgling label garnered unprecedented acclaim. This was soon followed by some notable krautrock releases, including electronic breakthrough album Phaedra by Tangerine Dream (which went Top 20), and The Faust Tapes and Faust IV by Faust . The Faust Tapes album retailed for 49p (the price of a 7" single) and as a result allowed this relatively unknown band a massive audience as
13559-690: The guidance of Tessa Watts , Virgin's Head of Publicity (and later, also Director of Production), the Pistols rocketed the label to success. Shortly afterwards, the Nottingham record shop was raided by police for having a window display of the Sex Pistols' album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in the window. Afterwards they signed other new wave groups: Public Image Ltd , Boxer , Culture Club , Fingerprintz , Gillan , Holly and
13708-657: The label's president, with Virgin Records now operating as an imprint of latter label. In February 2021, the Universal Music Group announced that it will rebrand the Caroline Music Group as Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, the name change was "inspired and influenced by the spirit and ethos of the iconic Virgin Records label". In September 2022, UMG consolidated Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, Ingrooves Music Group , and
13857-399: The laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces , a lively oral tradition preserves jody calls ("Duckworth chants") which are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made similar use of a large body of sea shanties . Love poetry , often of
14006-563: The last 20 years of his life working on an Interactive Multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox , which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes , and 5,000 photographs. As of March 2012, this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online. This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by
14155-408: The loss of traditional music is slowed in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity. Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from fieldwork and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents. Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of
14304-409: The modern movie Songcatcher . One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism , the analysis of the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on a given song's historical roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this. The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with
14453-567: The music of Dvořák , Smetana , Grieg , Rimsky-Korsakov , Brahms , Liszt , de Falla , Wagner , Sibelius , Vaughan Williams , Bartók , and many others drew upon folk melodies. While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. The process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced" but also occurs more gradually even in settings of lower technological advancement. However,
14602-646: The musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people. One such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads ), some of which predated the 16th century. Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould and later Cecil Sharp worked to preserve
14751-476: The name Virgin Records. A minor number of artists remained on Virgin Records America's roster, which was mostly occupied with European artists such as Bastille , Barbara Pravi , Circa Waves , Corinne Bailey Rae , Ella Eyre , Grizfolk , Walking on Cars , Seinabo Sey , and Prides ; American artists include Knox Hamilton, L'Tric, Loren Gray , and Rise Against . Virgin Classics was founded in 1988 as part of Virgin Records. Along with EMI Classics , it too
14900-472: The new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of
15049-408: The offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon , Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. John Lomax (the father of Alan Lomax) was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . and
15198-705: The other. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to as " World music " or "Roots music". The English term " folklore ", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists. The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany – for example, popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America. The International Folk Music Council definition allows that
15347-805: The outcomes of battles or lament tragedies or natural disasters . Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges , these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry or Robin Hood . Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths. Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation
15496-449: The pace of many activities such as planting , weeding , reaping , threshing , weaving , and milling . In leisure time , singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive. Some believe that folk music originated as art music that
15645-400: The preservation of songs as artifacts of deceased cultures. "Functional" folklorists (e.g. Botkin and Alan Lomax) maintained that songs only retain relevance when used by those cultures which retain the traditions which birthed those songs. "Left-wing" folk revivalists (e.g. Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert) emphasized music's role "in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights". By
15794-493: The recently acquired mtheory Artist Partnerships as part of the newly launched division Virgin Music Group . UMG also appointed mtheory founders JT Myers and Nat Pastor as Co-CEOs of the new division. The Virgin label was distributed in the US by Atlantic from 1973 to 1975. During this period, 14 albums were issued. All had been previously issued in the UK on Virgin, although one album, Marjory Razorblade by Kevin Coyne,
15943-504: The rise of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, Elvis Costello also served as an inspiration for Bragg. He was particularly influenced by the Jam , as well as the Clash , whom he had seen play live in London in May 1977 on their White Riot Tour, and again at a Rock Against Racism carnival in April 1978, which he admits was the first time he really stepped into the world of music as it
16092-600: The same early 14 albums issued in the US by Virgin/Atlantic. In 1975, distribution transferred to Columbia (as it had in the US), but the following year distribution was transferred again to Polydor Records (which changed its name to PolyGram by 1980), and issued a different and larger selection of records from what was being issued in the US. Canadian editions of the Dindisc label were issued as Dindisc/Virgin. Virgin's Canadian division arranged to have Canadian artists Martha &
16241-573: The same time, Virgin releases distributed by Columbia continued, distribution returning to Atlantic (later WEA) in 1980, at which time Virgin International ceased operations. In 1986, Virgin Records opened up another American division, Virgin Records America . Its first release was the debut album by Cutting Crew which included the hit single " (I Just) Died in Your Arms ". Other Virgin America signings included Camper Van Beethoven , Bob Mould , Warren Zevon , Paula Abdul , T'pau , Ziggy Marley and
16390-450: The shop into a success, they turned their business into a fully fledged record label. The name Virgin , according to Branson (in his autobiography), arose from Tessa Watts , a colleague of his, when they were brainstorming business ideas. She suggested Virgin – as they were all new to business – like "virgins". The original Virgin logo (known to fans as the "Gemini" or "Twins" logo) was designed by English artist and illustrator Roger Dean :
16539-471: The songs they hear. For example, around 1970 the song Mullā Mohammed Jān spread from Herat to the rest of Afghanistan , and Iran where it was recorded. Due to its repetitive refrain and the predictability of the second half of each verse, it allowed for both its popularization, and for each singer to create their own version of the song without being overly-concerned for a melody or restrictive poetic rhythm. Because variants proliferate naturally, there
16688-497: The southern Yangtze area. Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan ) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. The music from this region influenced Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, which would later grow popular during the self-described "Golden Age" of China under
16837-584: The sponsorship of the Washington Post , the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for social goods such as democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers. The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways. Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax ) emphasized
16986-641: The street – which I'm also in favour of. During the 2005 general election campaign in the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency , Bragg endorsed Oona King , the Labour Party's pro- Iraq War candidate, over George Galloway , the left-wing socialist anti-war candidate from the Respect Party ; due to a belief that splitting the left-wing vote would allow the Conservatives to win the seat. Galloway overturned King's 10,000-strong majority to become
17135-634: The studio album Tooth & Nail . Recorded in five days at the home studio of musician/producer Joe Henry in South Pasadena it featured 11 original songs, including one written for the Bush Theatre and a Woody Guthrie cover. Stylistically, it continued to explore genres of Americana and alternative country , a natural progression since Mermaid Avenue . The album was a commercial success, becoming his best charting record since 1991's Don't Try This at Home . In February 2014, Bragg started
17284-459: The tape, but the company was near bankruptcy and had no budget to sign new artists. Bragg got an offer to record more demos for music publisher Chappell & Co. , so Jenner agreed to release them as a record. Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (credited to Billy Bragg) was released in July 1983 by Charisma's new imprint, Utility. Hearing DJ John Peel mention on-air that he was hungry, Bragg rushed to
17433-536: The term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes". The term further derives from the German expression Volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it
17582-565: The term "folk music": newly composed songs, fixed in form and by known authors, which imitated some form of traditional music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959; in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that, they had
17731-490: The term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged." The post– World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, Contemporary Folk Music , and brought an additional meaning to
17880-526: The term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example, the Grammy Award previously used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. Folk music may include most indigenous music . From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: In folk music,
18029-947: The texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the Latvju dainas . In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular. Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in collecting traditional songs, and a number of composers carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The advent of audio recording technology provided folklorists with
18178-530: The then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition. Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons , who between the years 1894 and 1915 published six volumes that included
18327-491: The three dimensions of freedom". While unable to tour over the pandemic years, Bragg began working on new material. This resulted in his thirteenth studio album, The Million Things That Never Happened , which was released in October 2021. Four singles were released from the album: "I Will Be Your Shield", "Ten Mysterious Photos That Can't Be Explained", "Pass It On" and "Mid-Century Modern". In February 2023, Bragg announced
18476-423: The time estimating an $ 80 million deal. The agreement also required Virgin to allocate about $ 25 million in video production, marketing and promotion costs – a much larger sum than most deals. Virgin Records America was founded by the executive team of Jordan Harris, Jeff Ayeroff and Phil Quartararo . Another American company called Caroline Records co-existed during this time. Caroline records rarely mentioned
18625-484: The tour, Bragg would play three consecutive shows over three nights at each venue: the first night a current, mixed Bragg set; the second from his first three albums; the third from his second three albums. "It's a way of keeping things interesting", he said of the format. The tour covered the United States and the UK and Ireland throughout 2019. It was intended to continue onto Australia and New Zealand in 2020, but
18774-478: The traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry , much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure, repetitive elements, and their frequent in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate
18923-658: The twenty-first century many cherished Chinese folk songs have been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . In the process, songs once seen as vulgar are now being reconstructed as romantic courtship songs. Regional song competitions, popular in many communities, have promoted professional folk singing as a career, with some individual folk singers having gained national prominence. The art, music and dance of Sri Lanka derive from
19072-561: The wearing of which became an archetypal image of the singer at that time. With it, he was able to busk outside the New Music Seminar , a record industry conference. In 1986 Bragg released Talking with the Taxman About Poetry , which became his first Top 10 album. Its title is taken from a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky and a translated version of the poem was printed on the record's inner sleeve. Back to Basics
19221-408: Was a bigger hit a year later with Lindy Layton replacing Bragg as lead vocal. In May 1990 Bragg released the political mini-LP The Internationale on his and Jenner's own short-lived label Utility, which operated independently of Go! Discs, to which Bragg was still contracted. The songs were, in part, a return to his solo guitar style, but some featured more complicated arrangements and included
19370-687: Was acquired by UMG in 2012 as part of the takeover of the EMI Group. But the terms of the European Commission 's approval of the takeover required divestment of the two classical labels. Accordingly, both were sold in February the following year to Warner Music Group , and this transaction was approved by the European Union that May. Warner placed the Virgin Classics artist roster and catalogue in its Erato Records division, and
19519-629: Was also in attendance. Bragg was involved in the play Pressure Drop at the Wellcome Collection in London in April and May 2010. The production, written by Mick Gorden, and billed as "part play, part gig, part installation", featured new songs by Bragg. He performed during the play with his band, and acted as compere . Bragg was invited by Michael Eavis to curate the Leftfield stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2010, which he has continued to do in subsequent years. He also took part in
19668-538: Was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s. Cecil Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music. Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in
19817-431: Was at the forefront of music's influence on the 1984 miners' strike , and played many benefit gigs in towns close to coalfields such as Newport and Sunderland. He also released an EP during this year titled "Between the Wars", which connected struggles of class solidarity to the present issue. This single was his most successful up until this point, reaching number 15 on the UK Singles Chart. The following year, after playing
19966-551: Was behind the letters, which argued that Bragg is a hypocrite for advocating socialism while living a wealthy lifestyle, and referred to him as anti-British and pro-immigration. Folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that
20115-424: Was changed and probably debased by oral transmission while reflecting the character of the society that produced it. In many societies, especially preliterate ones, the cultural transmission of folk music requires learning by ear , although notation has evolved in some cultures. Different cultures may have different notions concerning a division between "folk" music on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on
20264-1291: Was coming under intense anti-competitive pressure from British Airways . In 1993, BA settled a libel action brought by Branson over BA's " dirty tricks " campaign, giving him £500,000 and a further £110,000 to his airline. After being acquired by Thorn EMI, Virgin launched several subsidiaries like Realworld Records , Innocent Records , blues speciality label Point Blank Records , and indie music label Hut Recordings , and continued signing new and established artists like Korn , A Fine Frenzy , Thirty Seconds to Mars , Tina Turner , Beenie Man , The Rolling Stones , Spice Girls , The Smashing Pumpkins , We Are Scientists , The Kooks , dcTalk (mainstream releases, contract ended in 2000), Belinda Carlisle , Meat Loaf , Placebo , Janet Jackson (contract ended in 2006), Daft Punk (contract ended in 2008), My Favorite Highway , Does It Offend You, Yeah? , The Future Sound of London , The Chemical Brothers , Brooke Allison , The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus , The Almost , Mariah Carey (contract ended in 2002), N.E.R.D , Laura Marling , Swami , RBD , Thalía and Priscilla Renea . Because business models increasingly diverged, Thorn EMI shareholders voted in favour of demerger proposals on 16 August 1996. The resulting media company became
20413-813: Was created in 1978, commissioned by Simon Draper, then managing director of Virgin Records Limited. Brian Cooke of Cooke Key Associates commissioned a graphic designer to produce a stylised signature. The logo was first used on Mike Oldfield's Incantations album in 1978 and by the Virgin Records label exclusively until gradually other parts of the Virgin Group adopted it, including Virgin Atlantic , Virgin Mobile and Virgin Money . Virgin Records
20562-732: Was folded into Capitol Records' Nashville division. Capitol Records and Virgin Records America merged in 2007 to form Capitol Music Group after a massive restructuring of EMI Group Ltd. Stepping down as chief executive of Capitol Records was Andy Slater, with Jason Flom, former executive of Virgin, taking the reins as chairman and CEO of the newly created company. Universal Music Group (UMG) purchased EMI in 2012, thus acquiring Virgin. UMG absorbed Virgin's UK operations to create Virgin EMI Records in March 2013. On 16 June 2020, Universal rebranded Virgin EMI Records as EMI Records and named Rebecca Allen (former president of UMG's Decca label) as
20711-774: Was given the Trailblazer Award at the inaugural Americana Music Association UK Awards in London. Following that, in September he was given the Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award at the Americana Music Association US Awards in Nashville. In August 2016, Bragg released his eleventh album, a collaboration with Joe Henry, Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad , recorded at various points on
20860-483: Was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Contemporary Folk Album category. A third batch, Mermaid Avenue Vol III , and The Complete Sessions followed in 2012 to mark Woody Guthrie's centennial. A rift with Wilco over mixing and sequencing the first album led to Bragg recruiting his own band, The Blokes, to promote the album live. The Blokes included keyboardist Ian McLagan , who had been
21009-405: Was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure, as well as during religious activities. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set
21158-411: Was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable
21307-511: Was rescheduled and delayed multiple times due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic . The shows ultimately took place in February and March 2023. In May 2019, Faber and Faber published The Three Dimensions of Freedom , a short polemic by Bragg intended, according to the publisher's blurb, to "protect ourselves from encroaching tyranny". The author urges readers to "look beyond [the] one-dimensional notion of what it means to be free" and "by reconnecting liberty to equality and accountability, restore...
21456-545: Was setting up his own record label, Go! Discs – received a copy of Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy . He made Virgin an offer and the album was re-released on Go! Discs in November 1983, at the fixed low price of £2.99. Around this time, Andy Kershaw , an early supporter at Radio Aire in Leeds , was employed by Jenner as Bragg's tour manager. (He later became a BBC DJ and TV presenter, and he and Bragg appeared in an episode of
21605-416: Was so smug. And because she was Essex I took it personally. Then she accused me of being a fine example of Thatcherism". In 1999, he was invited to appear before a commission that debated possible reform of the House of Lords , at which he put forward what became known as "the Bragg Method": the arrangement of the Upper House to proportionally reflect the results of a general election. "Trying to make it sexy
21754-516: Was sold by Branson to Thorn EMI in June 1992 for a reported US$ 1 billion (around £560 million) (equivalent to $ 2,171,211,762 in 2023), with a special non-competition clause that would prevent Branson from founding another recording company during the five years following the agreement (see the final paragraph in EU Merger Decision IV/M202 of 27 April 1992). It now faces competition from Branson's new label: V2 Records . Branson sold Virgin Records to fund Virgin Atlantic which at that time
21903-407: Was the second artist signed to the label after Oldfield. Although Virgin was initially one of the key labels of English and European progressive rock, the 1977 signing of the Sex Pistols (who had already been signed and then dropped by both EMI and A&M ) reinvented the label PM in a new-wave outpost, a move that plunged the record company into the mainstream of the punk rock era. Under
22052-439: Was truncated from a 20-song double album to an 11-song single album. Beginning with Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn album in 1975, American distribution switched to CBS Records/ Columbia Records . CBS/Columbia was unwilling to release all Virgin artists, and so many were licensed to other labels: Some of these records had a small Virgin logo added to the regular company design on the label. One of Virgin's and Epic's biggest acts of
22201-423: Was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent
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