Unlocking the frustration British folk music legend Billy Bragg and his program Jail Guitar Doors are raising money to buy musical instruments for inmates in British jails

Jailhouse Rock is taking on a literal meaning for Billy Bragg.

The British folk legend has founded the initiative Jail Guitar Doors, a program to raise money to purchase instruments for British prisoners.

"The idea is that playing a musical instrument can help to give inmates an ability to confront their frustrations they face in prison and deal with the process of the frustration they face in a non-confrontational way by expressing themselves," Bragg says over the phone from his home in Dorset, England.

Getting involved in social activism is nothing new for the 51-year-old. Over the past 30 years he has fought for workers' rights, delved into British politics by promoting ideas such as tactical voting, and helped found the group Red Wedge, a Rock the Vote-type initiative encouraging young people to vote for the left-wing Labour Party.

In 2006 he laid out his thoughts about the British identity and where the country was headed in the book The Progressive Patriot: A Search for Belonging. He is currently in the process of writing a play based on the book. He wants to have it finished so it will run during next year's national election in England.

"It will be something I've never done before," he says. "It will be out of my comfort zone.

"That's what the book was: it was a sabbatical from music, but the bottom line is, I'm a communicator. All these things are a way to communicate things I believe in. It's basically one urge, and a different way to get out the urge."

He has been dealing with the urge since forming the punk group Riff Raff in the last 1970s. He quit the band and joined the British army's tank regiment in 1981. He got out two years later, picked up a guitar again and went on to record more than a dozen albums that balance his political ideals with intensely personal songs.

He got the idea to start Jail Guitar Doors -- named after a song by the Clash -- in 2007 after receiving a letter from Malcolm Dudley, a drug and alcohol counsellor at a prison in Dorset, who had been trying to teach inmates how to play guitar with the one instrument in the institution. The acoustic guitar belonged to the vicar, and they couldn't use it when he wasn't there, which meant sessions were sporadic. Dudley wondered if Bragg could help him procure more instruments for the prisoners as a means of rehabilitation.

Bragg was so intrigued by the work Dudley was doing he purchased six acoustic guitars, spray-painted them with titles of Clash songs -- including Jail Guitar Doors -- and delivered the instruments to the jail himself.

"It's one of those things that comes across my desk all the time. This seemed to be a thing I could do that has an effect. It was worth doing and I could see that effect immediately," he says.

He announced his intention to create a nationwide Jail Guitar Doors program at the 2007 NME Awards and was approached by Clash guitarist Mick Jones, who offered his help. Jones has since appeared with his ex-Clash bandmate Topper Headon on the album Breaking Rocks, the soundtrack to the documentary of the same name about the program, which so far has donated more than 170 guitars, a half-dozen drum kits, two PAs, a flute and various percussion instruments to 25 prisons in England.

"People are saying, 'What about the victims?' which is fair enough," Bragg says. "I believe in punishment and the punishment should fit the crime. Twenty-five per cent of people, in my experience, in the U.K. should never be released again, but 75 per cent are going to be out again and they are possibly going to live next to you, so shouldn't they be rehabilitated?"

Bragg's initiative has caught the attention of many musicians from around the world, including MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, who is gearing up to launch the program in the United States. Kramer's drug troubles are mentioned in the original Jail Guitar Door lyrics and he has worked with Road Recovery in the U.S., a program aimed at battling youth addiction.

Bragg will be spending plenty of time promoting the program, and possibly setting up a Canadian chapter, during his current coast-to-coast tour, which stops in Winnipeg Saturday at the Burton Cummings Theatre (tickets are $35 at Ticketmaster and the Winnipeg Folk Festival Music Store).

He is on the road in support of his latest album, Mr. Love and Justice, a reference to the two types of songs Bragg is known for.

"Most people have picked up on the fact there's more love songs than political songs. The challenge is mixing the two together," he says, adding love songs are easier for him to compose.

"I think with love songs you have more freedom because you're dealing with emotions; you can be more playful with a love song. With a political song, it's more black and white; however, you can mix some love in a political song, but it's harder to put politics in a love song."

While Bragg is in town he will attend the Winnipeg Folk Festival's Winter Wassail fundraiser tonight at the Winnipeg Convention Centre, where he will be given the festival's Artistic Achievement Award for his three-decade career.

Past award recipients include Richard Thompson, Loreena McKennitt, Bruce Cockburn, Odetta and Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Bragg played the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1989 and 2003.

"Getting an award from the festival, particularly the folk thing, that is important to me," he says. "The music I play and the way I mix music and activism is deeply imbedded in the folk history, which is what the festival is about, I think."

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 26, 2009 E10