Robb Johnson

During a time when political singer/songwriters appear virtually extinct, Robb Johnson offers flown the flag with biting songs and satire, railing contrary to the evils of capitalism, oppression, greed, and injustice wherever he is able to find it. However, charged and upset as his music offers frequently been, it’s invariably laced with just as much wit and laughter as polemics, and it is regardless simply one feature — although most pronounced — of his function. A huge enthusiast of Jacques Brel, he practically invented a fresh British chanson genre, produced a double idea record about his grandfather’s function in World Battle I and another record to raise money for his beloved Brentford team, and had written a reserve about Yoko Ono. He provides toured in areas as disparate as Belgium and Nicaragua and, asked what he’d like visitors to state about him, Johnson stated: “Robb Johnson? He don’t ‘arf compose some good tracks.” From Hounslow in Western world London, Johnson attempt to be a rock and roll superstar after spending his teenage years hearing David Bowie and Lou Reed, but got diverted with the vocalist/songwriter insect after viewing Pete Atkin within a folk membership. He went a folk membership at Sussex College or university, got addicted to the blues, bought a Dobro, and shaped a pub rock-band called Grubstreet designed to end up being Hounslow’s response to Bruce Springsteen. If they dissolved in 1983, he came back to playing in folk night clubs, where he fulfilled Tag Shilcock and Graham Barnes and, motivated with the horror of Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing conventional government, they shaped an agitprop trio known as Ministry of Humour. Heckling when other folks sang hunting tracks or shanties they regarded racist or sexist, they polarized opinion in the folk circuit but nailed their shades towards the mast numerous advantage concerts. After another abortive attempt at a power music group, Johnson reverted to some solo career, composing radical songs along with his brand caustic laughter, aligning himself with various other left-wing songwriters like Leon Rosselson. Establishing his very own record label, Irregular, he continued to form a favorite duo with Pip Collings and released a string of albums that cemented his popularity among the last honestly politics songwriters. In 1997 he shipped maybe his most ambitious — and something of his greatest — projects, the idea double album Mild Men, a shifting suite of tunes built about his grandfather’s battle encounters first performed live in the Passendael Serenity Concert and in addition featuring performers Roy Bailey and Vera Coomans and Belgian jazz designer Koen de Cauter. With the 1990s and 2000s he continuing to plow an extremely individual furrow, combining regular gigs with benefits, politics events, and trips all around the globe, his reputation like a radical terrifying off many would-be promoters who didn’t observe he was definately not one-dimensional. He extended his Abnormal label release a albums by additional artists such as for example Maggie Holland, and celebrated his 50th birthday by developing a new music group and documenting a live recording, Saturday Night in the Open fire Station. It proceeded to go so well that this music group made a decision to stay collectively — Roger Watson, Saskia Tomkins, Paul Midgley, and John Forrester creating the Irregulars. In 2007 Johnson loved even more acclaim than he previously ever experienced in his profession when the music group released its 1st studio recording, All THIS WAY because of this. His most available album, it had been largely nonpolitical and also found radio airplay, although there have been some familiar barbs in his lyrics, including a scathing indictment of modern-day Britain within the track “Moronland.”