JOE SOLO is an award-winning musician, writer, poet, activist, broadcaster and washing machine engineer from Scarborough. 

His musical odyssey began in 1987 and, on top of releasing 21 albums since 2004, he helped create WE SHALL OVERCOME in 2015, a campaign pushing for a positive response from the music community to the poverty and hardship inflicted on ordinary people by the government’s austerity program. 

Since October 2015 the movement has organised more than 1,100 gigs up and down Britain and beyond, raising an estimated £750,000 in cash, food, clothing and bedding for those hardest hit, and on the back of his efforts the Morning Star named Solo “Human Being of the Year.”

But he cant give up the day job: “If I was a musician I’d starve! I work full time. When I get home I have to fit music into the evenings and weekends.”

This is because so few political artists of his kind ever reach the mainstream and this is especially true for a younger artist just starting out. “I don’t think they’re ignorant of politics,” he says. “They can see they’re never going to get a record deal singing those songs.”

After 30 years of writing and gigging, Solo finally made his Glastonbury debut in June 2017, taking to the Leftfield stage with a skip in his step and a tear in his eye. This was a rare change from playing pubs, political events and picket lines, fundraisers and strike benefits. 

“I very rarely do ticketed events,” he says. “I'm usually play for diesel money, and if it’s for a cause I usually stick the diesel money in the collection bucket, unless I’m broke.”

As a political songwriter he naturally gravitates towards those kind of gigs, and then faces the criticism that he is preaching to the converted. He refutes this immediately: “What you’re actually doing is re-energizing the converted! People forget. They lose their passion after a few defeats. And your job is to remind them why they got into politics in the first place. It’s not preaching to the converted, it’s lighting a fire under their arse!”

Given the state of British culture, it is more important than ever to hold the torch for political songwriting. “We are living through Gramsci’s worst nightmare,” he says. “The ruling class absolutely own the narrative culturally, and as songwriters it’s our job to fight that. 

“We have to respect the stage. We have to respect the power and the responsibility that's connected with it. We’ve got to stand up there and speak our truth, to say: ‘This is what I believe, and I've got the power to make you believe it too.’ That’s what a microphone and a stage is for.”

His contribution to the Morning Star album A Touch Of Class is an anthem for working-class unity called These Are My People, https://atouchofclass.bandcamp.com/track/these-are-my-people. It reflects a change in his songwriting from creating political scenarios that ask the question “What would you do?” to what he calls “sledgehammer songs.”

“I think,” he says, “in the age of populism there’s no point being subtle when your enemy isn’t.”

These Are My People tackles head-on the conflict between class politics and identity politics. 

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” says Solo, “but you have to put the umbrella of class over it all. Otherwise you’re going to fight these battles over and over and not get anywhere. Unless you defeat the system which uses division to keep itself in place it will only ever be concessions.”

Solo’s contribution to A Touch Of Class is yet another in his three-decade long list of voluntary contributions to the working-class movement, and he has joined forces with a dozen other artists to create a unique and inspiring album to support the Morning Star. 

You can find it at https://atouchofclass.bandcamp.com, where the whole album is available for £10, with individual tracks at £1. All proceeds to the Morning Star.