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"Mr. Harding sings...like Elvis Costello...inventive wordplay and complex pop rhythms."-Christian Toto, Washington Times
John Wesley Harding has released 15 albums, ranging from traditional folk to full on pop music. His most recent pop release WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD (2009), recorded with The Minus Five, was a critical smash, garnering considerable airplay: the album is "terrifically catchy" (NEW YORKER), while Harding is "hyper-aware, expertly tweaking the lyricist's game at every turn" (LOS ANGELES TIMES), with "lyrics that dazzle" (WALL STREET JOURNAL). "Typically wry and acerbic" (BILLBOARD), the songs "reveal a greater maturity and lyrical polish..." making it "the most pleasing album Harding has made since his first studio effort, Here Comes the Groom" (ALL MUSIC GUIDE).
John Wesley Harding has been joined onstage by Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, John Prine, Bruce Springsteen (with whom he recorded a duet on his album AWAKE), Joan Baez, Peter Buck, Evan Dando, David Baddiel, Rick Moody, Tanya Donelly, Josh Ritter, Rosanne Cash, Colin Meloy, Scott MacCaughey and Robyn Hitchcock amongst others. He has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
His first novel, MISFORTUNE, under his real name Wesley Stace, was published to great acclaim in 2004 by Little, Brown (USA) and Jonathan Cape (UK) - translations followed in Italy, France (where it has become a bestseller), Holland, Taiwan, Japan, Spain and Israel. It was nominated for The Guardian First Book Award, The Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The James Tiptree, Jr. Award, listed as one of the books of the year in The Washington Post and The Boston Phoenix, and was one of Amazon's Top Ten Novels of the Year.
His second novel, BY GEORGE, was published in August 2007; it was one of the New York Public Library's Books To Remember of 2007, and Booklist Editor's Choice for books of the year. He has recently completed his third , CHARLES JESSOLD, CONSIDERED AS A MURDERER (to be published by Jonathan Cape in the UK in Sept 2010). Stace is currently artist-in-residence at Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ, where he curates the Words & Music Festival. He reviews for the Times Literary Supplement.
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