The Man With No Shadow - Liner Note

Out of the Shadows

After the relative success of The Confessions of St Ace for Mammoth/Hollywood in 2000, John Wesley Harding - with his A&R; man, close friend, and label head Rob Seidenberg - set about readying his next release for the label, to be called The Man With No Shadow.

The album was completely trouble-free in its creation. Half the songs were recorded in almost unimaginable style at Henson Studios (previously the Charlie Chaplin Studios and A&M; Studios) in Hollywood with a crack band under the production of Julian Raymond. How that was allowed to happen is, according to Harding, almost a novel in itself, requiring all Seidenberg’s powers of persuasion and many favors. The other half emerged in rural Connecticut in the studio of producer of Eric Kupper, featuring guest appearances from Gary Burnette (co-producer of The Confessions) and Dave Mattacks among others. The one outlier, “Sussex Ghost Story,” Harding’s collaboration with composer Gavin Bryars, was recorded in London at Electric Earth, then sung in New York City, where the rest of the album was mixed.

The subsequent wobbly trajectory of the album — which you have in your hands and which was never released in this form, on vinyl, or even under its actual title — is neatly told in three sequential Billboard articles.

On April 4, 2002, the Billboard headline was “Harding Readies ‘Shadowy' New Album.” “Due June 25 via Mammoth, the set features 12 tracks fueled by the trademark literate songwriting style that has won Harding a dedicated following. ‘The Man With No Shadow is the first record I've made where I didn't feel hampered by my resources: players, production, musicianship, time,’ Harding said. ‘For the first time ever, everything clicked into place.’ Utilizing his unusual capacity to combine emotion and wit in an intelligent dialogue, Harding backs such cuts as “Monkey and His Cat,” “She Never Talks,” and “Sluts” with an irresistible pop soundtrack.”

Hopes for the album, especially the first single “Negative Love,” were high. But sadly, for The Man With No Shadow, June 25 never came. The shoe dropped that spring when Hollywood closed down Mammoth, with promo CDs of the album already in circulation.

Under normal major label conditions, the album could have been lost in eternal turnaround, but by some kind of miracle, Hollywood gave the album back to Harding, who now had to find it a new home. On October 9 of the same year, Billboard reported “John Wesley Harding Finds 'Swings' Lurking In ‘Shadow’.“ “It could have been one of those terrible stories," Harding told them. "But it turns out [Hollywood] were extremely generous and so, I'm really free to do what I like with [the album]. Without being specific, we've had a couple of offers for it, but I'm in no hurry to get it out. I think it's one of my most accomplished records yet. And I just feel that it should be on the right label. So, in the meantime, I made a whole other album (Dynablob 4: Swings and Roundabouts), because I think what musicians do, basically, or should, is make music.”

“At the time,” the article continued, “Harding was writing his first novel (international bestseller Misfortune, published under his real name Wesley Stace). While Harding was revising the novel, recording Swings, and waiting to see how the Mammoth situation played out, advance copies of The Man With No Shadow sent out before the label's demise made their way onto Internet auction sites such as eBay, sometimes fetching more than $100. When it does emerge sometime next year, more than a year after it was completed, Harding says ‘it's gonna come out in a slightly different form. I'm gonna have to put some different mixes on or elongate some versions or put a different song on. I've had a bit of a luxury with that album, and I do kind of feel I could make some changes.’”

It wasn’t until December 17, 2003, that Billboard had a chance to return to the subject: “Harding Reshapes 'Shadow' Into ‘Apple'.” In the meanwhile, Harding, despite his talking of finding “the right label” had sold the record to the new-and-soon-to-be-defunct DRT, very much the wrong label. Ironically, Adam’s Apple had very nearly ended up on Yep Roc. Harding had discussed a possible release with co-founder Glenn Dicker, but his focus was now rather on the publication of his novel than on an album that had been intended for release almost two years previously, and the album ended up on DRT: "After more than a year of uncertainty, John Wesley Harding will early next year release a new studio album backed by full band. Adam's Apple is due Feb. 17 and will be preceded in October by Garden of Eden: The Fall EP. The new version jumbles the running order of the previous, adds the song ‘Protest Protest Protest,’ and deletes ‘Already Dead.’” As Harding drily commented: "Look, this is what happens when you're sitting on a record for a year. You think about it. Normally one doesn't have these luxuries. And, in a sense, it's good that one doesn't.”

The press had already received the album 18 months previously under a different title, but what reviews there now were on its eventual release, were fantastic. John D Luerssen at All Music: "Four years after The Confessions of St. Ace, John Wesley Harding re-emerges with the finest album of his career. Wes is as witty as ever on tracks like ‘Sluts,’ a wry funky rock nod to hedonism, and the offbeat story-song ‘Sussex Ghost Story,’ where love turns to murder, and various producers (including Fastball vet Julian Raymond) give him a rich, melodic canvas to paint superb pop soundscapes like ‘Pull’ and the blissfully crooned ‘Negative Love.’ Come to think of it, Harding's voice has never sounded better on melodic midtempo numbers like the organ-peppered ‘Nothing at All’ and the vibrant, riff-filled ‘It Stays.’ While the quirky ‘Protest Protest Protest’ comes off as an amusing novelty that examines the differences between 1960s activism and the politics of today, some could argue its tech-laced production affects the flow of the songs it rests alongside. Nitpicking aside, from the perky, orchestrated opening of ‘Monkey and His Cat’ through to the devotional parting ballad ‘When You Smile,’ Adam's Apple is a disc worth biting into again and again.” (Ironically, “Protest Protest Protest” was one of the tracks added to the new iteration.)

Harding now says: “I’m delighted that this album is finally coming out in its original form. The Man With No Shadow was probably the best album I'd made to that point, and certainly the best produced album I'd made, with the happiest marriage of songs, arrangements and production. And it’s great that it’s now on Yep Roc, where it nearly found a home back in 2002. Billy Maupin, who is now the head of Yep Roc, was my project manager at Mammoth back when we made this with such excitement and enthusiasm, so it really feels like the album has come full circle. In my view, this release of The Man With No Shadow replaces Adam’s Apple in the canon, because Adam’s Apple should never have existed,” he laughs. “Never speak to me of Adam’s Apple again.”