Editing Billy Bragg (section)

==Early life==
Bragg was born in 1957 in [[Barking, London|Barking]], [[Essex]] (later part of Greater London)<ref name="ind rebel">{{cite news |first=Deborah|last= Ross|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/billy-bragg-rebel-with-a-cause-127290.html| title=Billy Bragg: Rebel with a cause| work=The Independent| location=London |date=11 November 2002|access-date=9 January 2010}}</ref> to Dennis Frederick Austin Bragg, an assistant sales manager to a Barking cap maker and milliner, and his wife Marie Victoria D'Urso, who was of Italian descent through her father.<ref name ="telegraph1">{{cite news|first=Nick|last=Barratt| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/03/31/nosplit/ftdet131.xml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080506092320/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/03/31/nosplit/ftdet131.xml|url-status=dead|archive-date=6 May 2008|title=Family Detective: Billy Bragg| newspaper=Telegraph|date=9 December 2011|access-date=28 January 2010 |location=London}}</ref>{{efn|Marie was the daughter of Daisy Simmonds and Anielli D'Urso, the son of Alfonso D'Urso an ice-cream vendor living in [[Holborn]]. Alfonso's wife, Trofimena Giudotti, was the daughter of Luigi Giudotti, who also sold ice cream. They wed at [[St Peter's Italian Church]] in 1906.<ref name="telegraph1"/>}} Bragg's father died of lung cancer in 1976,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.billybragg.co.uk/press/story.php?ID=330|title=Tony Parsons and Billy Bragg tell of the devastation of losing parents to lung cancer|publisher= | work= Mirror|date=9 December 2011|access-date=10 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714152833/http://www.billybragg.co.uk/press/story.php?ID=330|archive-date=14 July 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> and his mother died in 2011.<ref>{{cite news|first=John|last= Harris|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/26/bragg-profile-new-album-lovesongs|title=Billy Bragg: Barking's Woody Guthrie on 30 years of songs and activism|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=26 March 2013|access-date=3 June 2013}}</ref>

Bragg was educated at Northbury Junior School and Park Modern Secondary School (now part of [[Barking Abbey School|Barking Abbey Secondary School]]{{sfn|Collins|2018|p=15}}) in Barking. He failed his [[Eleven-plus|eleven-plus exam]].{{sfn|Collins|2018|p=16}} He developed an interest in poetry at age twelve, when his English teacher chose him to read a poem he had written for a homework assignment on a local radio station.<ref name= graun>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/04/billy-bragg-a-lover-sings-selected-lyrics-extract |title=Billy Bragg: 'I got this crazy idea I was a poet' |last1=Bragg |first1=Billy |date=4 November 2015 |website= The Guardian |access-date=6 November 2015}}</ref> He focused on learning and practising the [[guitar]] with his next-door neighbour, Philip Wigg (Wiggy). Some of their influences were [[Faces (band)|the Faces]], [[Small Faces]] and [[the Rolling Stones]]. He was also exposed to folk and folk-rock music during his teenage years, citing [[Simon & Garfunkel]] and [[Bob Dylan]] as early influences on his songwriting.<ref name= graun />

During the rise of [[punk rock]] and [[New wave music|new wave]] in the late 1970s, [[Elvis Costello]] also served as an inspiration for Bragg.<ref>{{cite magazine |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=4 February 2008|title=Patriot games |url=https://recordcollectormag.com/articles/patriot-games |magazine=[[Record Collector]] |issue=345|access-date=21 August 2021}}</ref> He was particularly influenced by [[the Jam]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.kexp.org/read/2019/2/28/billy-bragg-his-one-step-forward-two-steps-back-tour-and-what-punk-and-the-clash-mean-him/|title=Billy Bragg on His One Step Forward. Two Steps Back. Tour and What Punk and The Clash Mean to Him| publisher=[[KEXP]] |date=28 February 2019| access-date=30 December 2023}}</ref> as well as [[the Clash]], whom he had seen play live in London in May 1977 on their White Riot Tour, and again at a [[Rock Against Racism]] carnival in April 1978, which he admits was the first time he really stepped into the world of music as it is used for political activism.<ref name="Bragg">{{cite web|last = Bragg|first = Billy|title = British Rocker Billy Bragg Talks About Music and Unions|url = http://0-eds.b.ebscohost.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/eds/command/detail?sid=165b6263-9ff5-429d-81f7-185e9d801fe9%40sessionmgr120&vid=1&hid=103|publisher = WorkingUSA|access-date = 17 October 2013}}{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted= yes }}</ref> The experience of the gig and preceding march helped shape Bragg's left-wing politics, a change from his having previously "turned a blind eye" to casual racism.<ref name="Bragg"/>