Classical
June, 1999
John Wesley Harding's Trad Arr Jones (Zero Hour) gives the current folk revival an essential it's lacked: an album of actual folk songs. Well, sort of. Harding, the self-styled gangsta folk performer, plays 11 songs based on traditional sources. Sometimes, as on The Singer's Request, only the melody's evocative melancholy makes you certain there's a traditional song in there somewhere. Elsewhere, songwriter Nic Jones takes incredible liberties in rewriting ancient ballads: Little Musgrave barely...
