Yep Roc Records
2006
Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
About This Album
Billy Bragg's first full-length album was a near-perfect distillation of his many facets -- one-man band, cheerful troublemaker, passionate if foghorn-voiced vocalist, rough but emphatic guitarist, heartfelt activist, man on the street, and lovelorn romantic walking the fine line between wistfulness and reality. Released in 1984, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg for the most part continues in the spare, voice-and-guitar style of the previous year's EP, Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy, but the production (from Edward DeBono) and engineering (by Kenny Jones) add a touch more polish that focuses Bragg's songs without dulling their impact, and the occasional subtle overdubs -- an acoustic guitar on "It Says Here," a trumpet on "The Saturday Boy," harmonies on "Love Gets Dangerous" -- bring additional seasoning to the recordings while maintaining the high-contrast dynamics that were so much a part of Bragg's early approach. And the 11 songs on board represent some of Bragg's strongest and most effective writing to date, balancing political numbers (most memorably his rant against the British press on "It Says Here" and the claustrophobic terror of the wartime narrative "Island of No Return") with tales of love that never go quite right (the sweet melancholy of "A Lover Sings" and "The Saturday Boy" are deeply affecting, while the blunt memories of infidelity are captured with painful clarity on "The Myth of Trust").
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,9 and 10)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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