Billy Bragg's blog

Elektra’s deep roots in folk music, punk rock, politically/socially conscious songwriting, and the British music scene all came together in the person of London-born Billy Bragg, who made his Go! Discs/Elektra debut with 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry. A decade later, after such acclaimed label releases as 1996’s William Bloke, Bragg was asked by Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora to write music for some of her father’s unrecorded lyrics. The result was 1998’s Mermaid Avenue and 2000’s Mermaid Avenue Volume II, recorded for Elektra in collaboration with Wilco (who were soon to move from Warner Bros. to Nonesuch) and also featuring Elektra labelmate Natalie Merchant.