On the evening of October 21 I experienced the sheer pleasure of seeing one of my long time favorites, Billy Bragg perform a two man show with pal Joe Henry. The venue was Seattle’s Neptune Theater.
These two men gave a stellar and congenial performance of mostly old American blues artists songs including a lot of Lead Belly including Where Did You Sleep Last Night (made famous more recently by Nirvana). Their version was a more soulful, mournful version with definite blue grass underpinnings.
Billy and Joe often stopped and talked with the audience, telling stories. One such story was Billy’s description of staying in the same San Antonio hotel where Robert Johnson made many of his recordings and how they decided to lay down some tracks of their own in the same place.
About half way through the show, Billy left the stage while Joe played a few songs solo. Then there was a short intermission and Billy came out to do a few songs solo that ended in an energetic version of There Is Power In A Union. After that song, Joe returned to the stage and claimed he couldn’t top that.
Eventually the talk turned to Brexit. Billy said the same racist rhetoric that led to the Brexit is the same racist rhetoric heard from Trump and his supporters. He explained how he’d walk the streets of London now and hear racial slurs he hadn’t heard since the seventies. He explained he didn’t feel Trump started that fire here in the US, but he’s standing around watching things burn. Although in my opinion Trump is throwing gasoline on the fire and encouraging his followers to do the same and he’ll pay their legal fees when they’re arrested.
Billy also touched on human rights issues. He brought up the clearing out of the refugee camp in Calais and how England was allowing children to come into the country. When the Daily Mail went down to take pictures they wrote that some of them didn’t look like children and added that one conservative member of parliament had the unmitigated gall to demand that the children’s teeth be checked to make sure they were indeed children. He also touched on the issue of global warming, stating that when they were in LA a few days prior it was over 100 degrees.
When the pair left the stage, they were immediately called back for an encore where they played a gorgeous cover of Gentle On My Mind.
The night was a great combination of great music and great political talk and I feel privileged to have witnessed it.
– All photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
