Billy Bragg: ‘An audience can generate a sense of social solidarity’

Billy Bragg performing in the 90s (Picture: Gie Knaeps/Getty Images)

When he was starting out as a young singer-songwriter and rabble-rouser, Billy Bragg used to pride himself on nicking other people’s audiences.

A spot at a talent competition at the famous Bridgehouse pub in Canning Town, east London, in the early 1980s – one of his first appearances playing solo in front of an audience – had caught the attention of someone at the Tunnel Club in Greenwich.

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