Called "the songwriter's singer" for his uncanny interpretive abilities, John Wright emerged late in life as one of the foremost British folk balladeers of his generation. Born June 22, 1947, in coastal Bournemouth, England, and raised in Manchester, Wright first sang alongside his three older brothers in their church's choir, and in his early twenties he moonlighted in a series of little-known rock bands while working by day as a salesman. After impulsively joining the British Army's Household Cavalry unit in 1970, Wright grew deeply attached to country life, and upon leaving...