JOHN WESLEY Harding's been busy in the three or so years since the release of 1992's Why We Fight -- busy cutting himself loose from a constraining major-label contract, busy touring on his own and as an opening act (for Bruce Springsteen, among others), and busy writing songs. John Wesley Harding's New Deal contains 13 skillfully crafted gems that, taken in sum, prove that Harding has been busy in the maturation game as well.
When he was 25 and Sire/Warner Bros. released Here Comes the Groom (featuring members of the Attractions), the Englishman was pegged as "the new Elvis Costello." Although he risks resurrecting that comparison by opening his fifth album with "To Whom It May Concern," faintly echoing Costello's The Juliet Letters, Harding at 30 sounds far less snarling and sarcastic than he did a mere five years ago.
As the album title indicates, he still takes a leftist folksinger's view of political and cultural issues, rendered explicitly in "The King Is Dead Boring" and "The Triumph of Trash." But what stands out in his latest musical/welfare program, aside from the rich vocal harmonies and the glorious mix of acoustic, electric, and pedal steel guitars (by Harding, Greg Leisz, and David Phillips), is Harding's commitment to compassion rather than cynicism. The lack of the former in today's "rather you than me" mentality informs "Other People's Failure," while the softening of Harding's own heart sets the tone for the entire album, from the freedom-loving "Kiss Me Miss Liberty" to the novel twist on the "between heaven and hell" theme on "God Lives Upstairs."
Recorded in coproducer Chris von Sneidern's basement studio, just around the corner from Harding's San Francisco home, John Wesley Harding's New Deal wears its influences on its sleeve like an NRA insignia -- Ray Davies in "Paradise," John Prine in "The Speed of Normal," Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and the Beatles' Rubber Soul in the album's textures (notably accented with violin and organ). But its liberal benefits derive from Harding's uncompromising artistic stance -- as an artist not only proud of his traditional singer-songwriter role but thoroughly attuned to the world he's living in.
-DERK RICHARDSON