Billy Bragg was born in 1957 - the year of peak skiffle - and made his musical debut during the punk rock explosion twenty years later. His experiences in 1977 offered him some insight into the DIY method of making music that was common to both genres. Talking to older musicians over the years, he came to realise the significance of the skiffle craze to the development of British rock.
In 2017, Faber Social published his comprehensively researched book on the subject Roots, Radicals & Rockers: how skiffle changed the world, which sought to put the music of the first British teenagers into context in the cultural landscape of post-war, pre-Beatle Britain and tells the story of how the guitar was introduced to British pop music.
A dedicated proselytizer for the skiffle revolution, Billy Bragg is currently celebrating 40 years since the release of his first record, Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy.
Billy Bragg
