John Wesley Harding takes novel approach to new CD.

Byline: Carolyn Lamberson The Register-Guard

By now, we're familiar with records that are "inspired" by motion pictures and television shows.

Remember last year's "Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah," the third album, of four so far, "inspired" by Fox's teen soap opera "The O.C."? Yeah, that's what we talking about.

Now Wesley Stace, the real name of singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding, has done that one better. He's put out a CD of music inspired by his own debut novel. He'll perform the whole of "Songs of Misfortune," along with some old favorites, when he plays at Cozmic Pizza on Thursday.

In April, Stace published "Misfortune" (Little, Brown), a novel set in 19th century England about a baby boy rescued from a trash heap and raised in the lap of luxury - as a girl.

But the story of this project - or projects - is older than that. It started with the song, "Miss Fortune," that appeared on Harding's 1998 "Awake" album.

`And it continues with a few unfinished attempts at novels over the years,' Harding said, speaking by phone from his home in Brooklyn. "And then what I realized - to make a very long story short and to make a short song into a much longer novel - I realized that the song `Miss Fortune' was one that I could actually do something with in terms of a novel. And I just got immersed in the world of it.'

In the book, he created a character of a songwriter, whose tunes are vital to the plot.

"Because of the way I think, there's a lot of ballads in the novel because I just like the English ballads,' he said. "So ballads are used often to cross-reference a character or to describe their state of mind, or to help create a feel for the 19th century England that I really liked.

`I wanted (the ballads) to be a part of the novel because ballads are brutal and mysterious and mythical, and yet rather frank about many things.'

The novel contains three or four songs that are specific to "Misfortune," and others that "just kind of pop up," Harding said. He initially resisted the idea of doing a companion CD to the novel. He didn't want to do a rock album, or something that would be wrong for the novel's era. He figured the only way it could be done was as an a cappella album, in traditional folk style.

So he put together the Love Hall Tryst - Loveall is the name of the family in "Misfortune" - featuring friend and frequent collaborator Kelly Hogan, Nora O'Connor and Brian Lohmann.

`I don't want people to consider this CD we just put out as needing any understanding of the novel. It needs none whatsoever,' Harding said. "No novel needs a CD of songs. And likewise, this CD, you don't need to understand the novel or have read it or know a damn thing about it to be able to enjoy it.'

The songs - a mixture of original songs, traditional songs done up with new lyrics and traditional lyrics set to new tunes - are bawdy and vicious, with beautiful harmonies, Harding said.

"My attitude is to make them into dramatic events befitting the incredibly gruesome subject matter of the songs,' he sad. "The body count is high on this record.

`Babies are murdered. Babies are saved, as well, but babies are murdered, mothers are murdered, Masons who don't get paid come back and exact revenge on family, and there's a lot of death and blood on the record.

`So much that it kind of seems like a comment on contemporary America.'

Education gets sidetracked

Harding, a Brit by birth, has had a few years to observe contemporary America.

Harding moved to San Francisco in the early '90s and relocated to Seattle later in the decade. He decamped for Brooklyn in 2001.

He left Cambridge University before completing his doctorate in social and political science to pursue a career in music. Since making his debut album, 1988's "It Happened One Night," he's recorded a series of critically lauded albums, including "Here Comes the Groom," "Why We Fight" (which landed Harding a stint opening for Bruce Springsteen), `Awake," "The Confession of St. Ace' and 2004's "Adam's Apple."

"Songs of Misfortune" isn't even his first foray into traditional folk music. In 1999, he released "Trad Arr Jones," featuring arrangements of traditional folk songs by Nic Jones.

And now he has the task of touring with his latest traditional folk album. Hogan, a solo artist in her own right, will open the show, and Harding will do a set of his other songs in the middle.

"But we kind of bookend our show with the entirety of the album in two halves,' he said. "We do the first five songs in the beginning and the last five song at the end, but we do some other stuff in the middle."

His next record, he said, will be a pop album. And he's already halfway through his next novel, which will be set in contemporary England.

Novel writing, he said, is something he hopes to do for a long time. His first stab at it turned out pretty well. The book earned positive reviews from publications such as USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and Publishers' Weekly.

And while the book's been out since April, he said the new CD offers `a chance really for the book to be considered by a lot of other people. That wasn't my goal, but it was something I've noticed.'

CONCERT PREVIEW

Love Hall Tryst, featuring

John Wesley Harding

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: Cozmic Pizza, 199 W. Eighth Ave

Tickets: $12 in advance, available at CD World and Books Without Borders, or $14 day of show

CAPTION(S):

John Wesley Harding says his latest album has introduced people to his novel who might not have otherwise read it.