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Nearly everything one first learns about John Wesley Harding suggests the man is a smart-aleck. A folky troubadour transplanted long ago from Hastings, England to the U.S., the man born Wesley Stace adopted a stage name taken from one of Bob Dylan\u2019s most celebrated releases. (Some years ago he also released an album that waggishly poked fun at that nom de musique<\/i>: the first release in his Dynablob<\/i> series even featured cover art modeled after Dylan\u2019s 1967 LP.<\/p>\n
As fine a songwriter as he is \u2013 1990\u2019s Here Comes the Groom<\/i> and 1992\u2019s Why We Fight<\/i> are overlooked gems \u2013 Harding\/Stace is also a keen and incisive observer of pop culture. He\u2019s authored several books, and his deep catalog featured humorous songs about ABBA\u2019s quest for world domination as well as one (\u201cWhen the Beatles Hit America\u201d) that sagely predicted not only the \u201cThreetles\u201d studio reunion of the 1990s but Jeff Lynne\u2019s role in that project as well. A renowned raconteur, he served as co-master of ceremonies at Yep Roc Records\u2019 15th anniversary gala\/festival, trading witticisms with Eugene Mirman.<\/p>\n
Against that backdrop, perhaps it\u2019s not terribly surprising that Stace\/Harding would eventually choose to record an album of covers. And that\u2019s precisely what Greatest Other People\u2019s Hits<\/i> is: 17 songs, all made famous and\/or written by some of the man\u2019s favorite songwriters\/performers.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s quite a varied lot. The set opens with perhaps Harding\u2019s most well-known cover, a reading of Roky Erickson\u2019s \u201cIf You Have Ghosts,\u201d originally featured on the 1990 all-star Roky tribute album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye<\/i>. Backed by his then-band the Good Liars, Stace tears into the tune, paying tribute while lending the song some of his own character as well.<\/p>\n
That recording and a reading of Elizabeth Barraclough\u2019s \u201cCovered Up in Aces\u201d (the latter featuring Barraclough singing and playing with Stace) are the oldest tracks on what is essentially a compilation. A few of the tunes have not been released before now; others appeared only on hard-to-find singles, EPs or various-artists collections.<\/p>\n
Though Harding is his own man, he does love a duet. In addition to the side with Barraclough, Other People\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/i> finds him singing songs by (and with<\/i>) Bruce Springsteen (\u201cWreck on the Highway\u201d and \u201cJackson Cage\u201d) and Lou Reed (\u201cSatellite of Love\u201d). He also takes the opportunity to pay tribute to some of his heroes including George Harrison (a cover of \u201cWah Wah\u201d that follows Harrison\u2019s wall-of-sound approach to arrangement, collaborating with the Universal Thump), Madonna (\u201cLike a Prayer\u201d) and even Serge Gainsbourg (\u201cJe Suis Venu te Dire Que M\u2019en Vais,\u201d sung in French). Elsewhere he gives a nod to his folk antecedents Phil Ochs (a decidedly rocking-out \u201cAnother Age\u201d) and Pete Seeger (\u201cWords Word Words,\u201d a collaboration with the Minus Five). A reading of Jimmy Silva\u2019s \u201cNeed I Know\u201d is yet another highlight of the set.<\/p>\n
Despite his reputation as a wryly clever performer, on Greatest Other People\u2019s Hits<\/i>, John Wesley Harding plays it straight, delivering heartfelt, often rocking readings of songs he loves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly everything one first learns about John Wesley Harding suggests the man is a smart-aleck. A folky troubadour transplanted long ago from Hastings, England to the U.S., the man born […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,51,62,65],"tags":[1195,1622],"class_list":["post-15192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-john-wesley-harding","tag-omnivore-recordings","cat-19-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15194,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15192\/revisions\/15194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}