26 February 2024
Newsdesk
Billy Bragg, who last year celebrated a remarkable 40 years as Britain’s favourite folk singer, songwriter and campaigner, will play some shows in support of the anti-fascist group Hope not hate, who are themselves celebrating 20 years of campaigning this year.
The shows under the Hope not hate @20 banner are:
MAY
8th SHEFFIELD Network
9th LONDON Islington Assembly Hall
10th MARGATE Dreamland Hall By The Sea
[In forty years of treading the boards this is actually the very first time Billy Bragg has played a show in Margate!]
Says Billy: “HOPE not hate have been tireless in the past twenty years in their fight against the far right. In this election year, it’s clear that minorities are going to be demonised by those seeking to turn bigotries into votes. HOPE not hate have plans to counter such divisive politicking and I’m proud to be supporting them in their efforts”.
Says Nick Lowles from HOPE not hate: “Billy Bragg is an inspiration to us. We’re not just indebted to him for his twenty years of support, but for his forty years of music, words and poetry. His is the voice so many of us turn to when we look for someone or something to articulate how we feel about the many great injustices we confront.”
Support will come from the next generation of the family to work with Hope not hate in the form of Jack Valero.
Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for 40 years. He has released 11 solo studio albums, three albums with Wilco and one album with Joe Henry. He released a mini album Bridges Not Walls in 2017. Last year Billy released an acclaimed career spanning box set of his work entitled ‘The Roaring Forty’ and was honoured with a pavement plaque on the Camden Music Walk Of Fame, alongside The Who, David Bowie, Madness, Amy Winehouse et al.
Billy Bragg added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World. He has written two books of political analysis - The Progressive Patriot: A Search For Belonging (2006) and The Three Dimensions of Freedom (2019).
