Billy

“The record’s about me...”; first in six years from country songwriting legend...

A campaign led by Billy Bragg has successfully seen prisoners in British jails allowed to use steel stringed guitars. Musicians including Radiohead's Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway, Elbow's Guy Garvey, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Johnny Marr also supported the campaign to overturn the ban on steel-strung guitars in British prisons. The campaign was also led by Cardiff West MP Kevin Brennan, who has commented:

Billy Talbot, bassist with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, has suffered a mild stroke, according to a report on Rolling Stone. The story reports that Talbot will sit out the band's forthcoming European tour dates. "Talbot's doctors expect him to make a full recovery," the group said in a statement. "They have advised Talbot to sit this tour out and recover his strength." Talbot's place will be filled by Neil Young's longtime bassist Rick Rosas.

Billy Corgan is to release an album of experimental recordings made in 2007 for a price of $59.95 (approximately £36). Titled AEGEA, the album comes in an edition of 250, each hand-numbered and annotated by Corgan. It will be released in the next six to eight weeks, reports Pitchfork.

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is set to play an eight hour long gig based on author Hermann Hesse's 1922 novel, Siddhartha.

The bard's compact debut plus live counterpart...

Bonnie "Prince" Billy has recorded a new version of "Black Captain" for Greenpeace's Peter Willcox.

Billy Bragg has called on artists to take action against record labels, and not companies like Spotify, for the poor rates they get from music streaming services. Services such as Spotify have come under attack recently from artists such as Thom Yorke and more recently Foals, who have rallied against the low royalty rates paid to artists.

Billy Corgan has told Uncut that he regrets not quitting Smashing Pumpkins when drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was sacked in 1996.

Billy Bragg delivered the second annual John Peel Lecture earlier today (November 12) at the Radio Festival 2012 at The Lowry in Salford. Bragg's speech saw him rallying against the decline of state educated musicians in the UK Top 40, highlighting a magazine study which revealed that 80% of artists in the charts in 1990 were state educated, as compared to the charts in 2010 which were dominated by those who had been privately educated. He said – via The Guardian: "A decent education in the arts will only be available to those able to pay for it."