Mike Harding is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist. Harding has also been a photographer, traveller, filmmaker and playwright. Harding began performing as a folk singer and as a member of several local Manchester bands in the 1960s, making his first recordings for the Topic label. He began telling jokes between songs, eventually extending them into longer humorous anecdotes which became the main focus of his act. He released his first album, A Lancashire Lad, in 1972, followed by Mrs ‘Ardin’s Kid in 1974. In 1975, the single release of “The Rochdale Cowboy” reached No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart, and brought him national attention.
As a stand-up comic he made several series for the BBC and appeared on numerous television and radio programmes, including two series of travel films in Ireland and the Appalachian Mountains of America. He also played rock and roll with his band, the Stylos, with the Lowe Brothers. He has had many albums and singles released, whilst the latter included “Man ‘nited Song”.
As well as comedy, he has released albums of serious songs, most notably Bombers’ Moon, the title track of which tells of his father’s death. The album also includes “The Accrington Pals” and cover versions of Bruce Springsteen’s “Factory” and Eric Bogle’s “Andthe Band Played Waltzing Matilda”. Harding composed the music scores for DangerMouse, Count Duckula (he also sang the main and end titles with Manchester native Doreen Edwards), The Reluctant Dragon and The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship for Cosgrove Hall Films.
As well as being an acclaimed musician and comedian, he wrote The Armchair Anarchist’s Almanac, a humorous A to Z book; two collections of anecdotes, jokes and songs entitled The Unluckiest Man in the World and The 14½ Pound Budgie; and a comedy/thriller/fantasy, Killer Budgies. His other books include a series covering aspects of his interest in British folklore and history – The Little Book of the Green Man, The Little Book of Stained Glass, The Little Book of Gargoyles, and The Little Book of Misericords; and the loosely factual autobiography, You Can See the Angel’s Bum, Miss Worswick! He has also read two of his short stories for Afternoon Story on BBC Radio 4. In 1986, Harding wrote the foreword to Barry Pilton’s book, One Man and His Bog.
He more recently made a series of fourteen short films on minority religions in England for the BBC’s Heaven and Earth show. Harding has presented the annual BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and from 1997 to 2012 he presented the weekly BBC Radio 2 flagship folk and roots programme, The Mike Harding Show. His last show was in December 2012. According to Mark Radcliffe, who took over Radio 2’s Folk Show, Harding had left reluctantly, claiming that the BBC had “sold the folk world down the river”. Four days later, Harding launched his own internet radio show, called The Mike Harding Folk Show broadcast at 5pm every Sunday and available as a podcast and on iTunes afterwards. The show went on a very short break during November and December 2017, after 252 regular weekly episodes, with a Christmas episode #253 published in December 2017 and the next episode (#254) published in February 2018. Thereafter, commencing in March 2018, Harding was back with a regular monthly slot and as of July 2022, he has broadcast 306 episodes of The Mike Harding Folk Show.
