His concert at Manchester’s Co-op Arena in May last year featured a lengthy onstage broadside against Donald Trump, and his long history of political activism and recording songs that speak truth to power includes an entire album of tracks made popular by one of the masters of the protest song,

Throughout history, musicians have used music as commentary on current events. It’s often powerful, and it’s a phenomenon that transcends genres.

Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams tapped into America's current period of struggle on her latest album, a collection of protest songs called "World's Gone Wrong."

American singer-songwriters are taking up the protest torch like their forebears Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, releasing tracks

The set-up for a typical Jesse Welles video is simple: the 32-year-old stands in an open field under a string of powerlines, clutching an acoustic guitar. From behind a tousled, curly mop of hair, he stares straight into the camera and starts singing.

At his live show at Sydney’s Factory Theatre, which took place amid the backdrop of the raucous biannual King Street Crawl, it was immediately clear punters were here for something different to the deluge of party punk bands playing across the Inner West on Sunday.