Billy Bragg Adapts Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues" with a Modern Message

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In 1938, Leadbelly recorded "Bourgeois Blues" to protest the racism he encountered in Washington, D.C. Seven decades later, England's premiere folk-punk-poet-bard Billy Bragg noticed a few things going on in the U.S. capital that rubbed him the wrong way. On his current sold-out American tour, Billy has been performing his own version of "Bourgeois Blues" with a modern twist.

Being a man of action, Billy ducked into Big Sky Recordings in Ann Arbor, Mich., on March 22 and laid down "Bush War Blues," with lyrics adapted to express his condemnation of the war in Iraq. His voice husky from his hefty touring schedule, Billy originally attributed the song to a newly-created alter ego, Johnny Clash.

Yep Roc Records is very happy to make the song available free to Billy's fans, just a few days after it was recorded.

"It's like the old days of Sun Records," said Yep Roc promotions director Steve Gardner. "Elvis would lay down a track one day and it would be a hit the next.

"It's kind of ironic that digital technology and the Internet have allowed artists to return to an immediacy we associate more with the past."

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