John Wesley Harding Biography
by Mark Deming
Taking his cues from the great singer/songwriters of the '60s and '70s (in one of his early songs, he declared "Bob Dylan was my father, Joan Baez was my mother, and I'm their bastard son"), British songwriter John Wesley Harding took the rudiments of contemporary folk and fused them with the sharp wit and observational viewpoint of latter day tunesmiths such as Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg. Harding made his recorded debut with a live album, 1988's It Happened One Night, which attracted enough critical buzz to earn him a contract with Sire Records, which released his first studio album, Here Comes the Groom, in 1989. In time, Harding proved he was a songwriter with a distinct voice of his own, and after two more albums for Sire, he recorded a diverse variety of independent albums, including 1998's Awake, 2000's The Confessions of St. Ace, and 2009's Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. In 2005, Harding published his first novel, Misfortune, under his given name, Wesley Stace, as he divided his time between music and literary endeavors. In 2013, he released the album Self-Titled as Wesley Stace, though he would continue to bill himself as Harding on occasion, as evidenced by the interpretive 2018 album Greatest Other People's Hits.
Tracklist
1. Here Comes The Groom
2. Cathy's New Clown
3. Space Cowgirl
4. Scared of Guns
5. You're No Good
6. When The Sun Comes Out
7. The Devil In Me
8. An Audience With You
9. Dark Dark Heart
10. Same Thing Twice
11. Affairs of The Heart
12. Nothing I'd Rather Do
13. Things Snowball
14. The Red Rose and The Briar
15. Bastard Son
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