By Brian Harris (Brookdale Student)
John Wesley Harding’s latest album with The Minus Five is called Who was Changed and Who was Dead and it’s a great showing of the different and eclectic styles and interests of Harding, who got his stage name from the Bob Dylan album John Wesley Harding, who was a famous Old West gunslinger.

Harding has been compared on more than one occasion to Elvis Costello and I can see the comparison as Costello also had many different influences. Unlike Costello, Harding comes across as somewhat goofy on this album. Hell, one of the songs on the album has Harding breaking out a kazoo solo. The rest of the album is your standard acoustic tinged rock record with Harding cheekily refers to as “folk noir” and “gangsta folk”. The albums sounds good but its schizophrenic changes in style make it hard to give it a solid recommendation. Fans of Harding will enjoy it but this isn’t the type of album to get people into John Wesley Harding.**