I know he's popping up a lot lately, but that may be in proportion to the amount he opens his mouth:

>From a concert review in The Oregonian, Portland, OR Saturday 9/4/99

"Bragg lost no chance to tell people his beliefs, but he was never strident. An honest workingman, in other words, and one of the lads. He laughed at a music paper's one-line description of him as 'the poor man's Morrissey--and that's no slight.' 'No,' he told the crowd of 2,500, 'but it is wrong--I'm the workingman's Morrissey."

I recently saw Billy Bragg in concert here at the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was a good show that had some funny Morrissey moments.

First, Billy mentioned that someone wrote in a magazine (I didn't catch the name) that Billy is "the poor man's Morrissey." He said "this is not a slag; but if that's true...I 'd like to be more along the lines of the ' working man's Morrissey!'" Then he did his song "A New England" and improvised a Smiths' ending to the song singing: "I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm UNDERPAID now." It was neat to hear this little tribute. Later on he covered "Jeane" as he seems to be doing on this tour. After the show I went up to get my CD signed and he saw that I had my "Sheila Take a Bow" T shirt on. He laughed and said "Aha! I see what you're wearing there! More Morrissey!"

I said it was nice to hear him do "Jeane" and that I really like the stuff he and Johnny did together, but that was the extent of our conversation. He was a very nice guy and I just thought this story might be of interest to others...