About Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding)
Wesley Stace is an English folk/pop singer-songwriter and author who has used the stage name John Wesley Harding. Under his legal name, he has written four novels. He is also an occasional university teacher and the curator of Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders.
Stace was born in Hastings, East Sussex, England, the son of educators Christopher Stace and Molly Townson. His mother was also an opera singer and for many years was the director of the Hastings Musical Festival. His sister, Melanie Stace, is a performing artist. His given name, Wesley, comes from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who preached one of his last sermons near the town where Harding was born. As a child, he taught himself how to play guitar and eventually starting writing his own songs as a teenager, citing John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III, and Bob Dylan as influences. His education included the boarding school St. Andrews School ; Milbourne Lodge ; The King's School Canterbury; and university at Jesus College, Cambridge. He left Cambridge with a First in English Literature, but left before completing his PhD in Social and Political Science to pursue a career in music.
Stace began his musical career using the stage name John Wesley Harding, which he took from the 1967 Bob Dylan album John Wesley Harding, for which Dylan misspelled the outlaw John Wesley Hardin's name, adding a final 'g'. He attracted notice after opening a concert for John Hiatt, leading him to sign with Demon Records, who released his critically acclaimed live album It Happened One Night in 1988. The success of the album led to a record deal with Sire Records, with whom he released Here Comes the Groom in 1990. The album featured members of The Attractions, and this association caused critics to frequently compare Stace to Elvis Costello for much of his career. He released The Name Above the Title and Why We Fight for Sire in 1991 and 1992 respectively, but despite critical acclaim and a strong cult following from his engaging live shows, he was not able to find a larger audience, leading Sire to drop him from the label. He continued to release music as John Wesley Harding throughout the 90s and early 2000s on various independent labels, including the song "I'm Wrong About Everything", featured on the soundtrack for the movie High Fidelity. In 1995, he was chosen by Bruce Springsteen as his first opening act in 20 years for his solo shows at the Berkeley Community Theatre in 1995. In the mid 2000s he took a temporary hiatus from music to focus on his burgeoning writing career, returning in 2009 with Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead, a collaboration with The Minus 5. After 2011's The Sound of His Own Voice, he began releasing music under his given name, the most recent being 2021's Late Style.
"John Wesley Harding's Cabinet of Wonders", his series of variety shows, began in Spring 2009 in New York City at Poisson Rouge, before moving to City Winery, and has included appearances by Rosanne Cash, Graham Parker, Josh Ritter, Rick Moody, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Ames, A.C. Newman, Rhett Miller, Steven Page, Eugene Mirman, Kristin Hersh, David Gates, John Roderick, Jon Auer, Tanya Donelly, Martha Plimpton, Todd Barry, Steve Almond, and Stephen Elliott. The spring 2010 series featured, among others, Sarah Vowell, Sondre Lerche, Buffalo Tom, Janeane Garofalo, Robbie Fulks, and Paul Muldoon. Artists in the series included Andrew Bird, Tift Merritt, and David Wax Museum. Podcasts of the series can be heard on NPR's "Cabinet of Wonders." and recently on Salon.com. Live shows continue in New York City and across the country.
In 2005, Stace published his first novel, Misfortune, under his real name, based upon lyrics to his song "Miss Fortune" from his 1998 album Awake. It was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award, and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Misfortune was also chosen by Amazon.com as one of the Ten Best Novels of 2005, and was one of the Washington Post's Books of the Year. Misfortune, translated as L'infortunée, became a best-seller in France, and has also been translated into many languages including Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese. The movie rights to "Misfortune" were sold in 2008. His 2005 album Songs of Misfortune comprises songs written for, or appearing in, that book.
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. A third, Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK in July 2010 and Picador in the United States in February 2011, and was one of the Wall Street Journal's Top Ten Books of the Year. Wonderkid, his fourth novel, followed in 2014. He then worked with choreographer Mark Morris on his memoir Out Loud, which was released in 2019.
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