(COLLINGSWOOD, NJ) -- The Scottish Rite Auditorium presents Billy Bragg on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at 7:30pm. In 2023, Bragg celebrated a remarkable 40 years as Britain's favourite folk singer, songwriter and campaigner. Steven Page (formerly of Barenaked Ladies) will open the night.
To mark the significant landmark of 40 years as a recording artist, Bragg released an acclaimed career-spanning box set The Roaring Forty (1983-2023) and played to sell-out crowds across the world. In November he performed his most famous song "A New England" on Later With Jools Holland almost exactly 40 years to the day that he debuted the song on The Tube (also presented by one Jools Holland!).
Galvanized in the late 70s by The Clash and an aversion to the austere policies of Margaret Thatcher, Billy set out to inspire political engagement and empathy. He has performed numerous benefit shows for the miners, the Labour Party, CND, the jobless and many more, and has run the Left Field political stage at Glastonbury for the last 20 years.
Billy has released 11 solo studio albums, three albums of Woody Guthrie lyrics set to contemporary music by Billy and Wilco (the mermaid Avenue albums) and one album with JoeHenry. He released a mini albumBridges Not Wallsin 2017. His latest studio album, the acclaimed The Million Things That Never Happened came out in 2021.
Billy Bragg added the best-selling author to his CV with the success of his claimed 2017 book Roots, Radicals & Rockers–How Skiffle Changed The World. He has written two books of political analysis -The Progressive Patriot: A Search For Belonging (2006) and The Three Dimensions of Freedom (2019).
Billy won the Outstanding Contribution To British Music Award at the prestigious Ivors Awards in 2018. Born and raised in Barking, East London, Billy has a street named after him in his hometown. Billy has been honoured with a pavement plaque on the Camden Music Walk Of Fame (previous recipients include Madness, Amy Winehouse, The Who, David Bowie, and The Kinks)
Tickets range from $49.50 to $89.50 and are available for purchase online. The Scottish Rite Auditorium is located at 315 White Horse Pike in Collingswood, New Jersey.
The Scottish Rite is one of the largest auditoriums in South Jersey. Voted one of the “150 Best Buildings and Places” by the American Institute of Architects in the 2011 AIA New Jersey Guidebook, the property rests on eight acres of land and comprises two separate buildings. The largest building is a five-story structure that houses the Collingswood Grand Ballroom and the 1,050 seat Scottish Rite Auditorium. The Scottish Rite Auditorium presents over twenty concerts per year by notable performers and bands such as America, Gordon Lightfoot, and Kansas to name a few. The late David Crosby called the stage “the coolest place I ever played!”
