John Wesley Harding

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 s...