Jonathan Richman

Y’know the famous statement that The Velvet Underground only sold ten thousand copies of their debut album, but everyone who bought it formed a band? Well, Jonathan Richman was most definitely one of those ten thousand people who bought it. He had already started playing guitar and writing songs by the time he hit his mid-teens, but when he discovered the Velvet Underground he found that he knew what he wanted to do with his life, not just with his spare time. After growing up in Natick, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, he moved to New York City after he graduated from High School in 1969 and got to know the band, even sleeping on the sofa of the bands manager as he had nowhere else to go.

He eventually spent nine months in New York City before moving back to Boston. Inspired by the Velvets, he and his childhood friend John Felice formed the band The Modern Lovers in 1970 with Rolfe Anderson on the bass and David Robinson (who would later become a founding member of The Cars) on the drums. Robinson wasn’t the only member of the Lovers who would go on to have major success in other bands, though. After Felice and Anderson departed a year after they formed, they were replaced with Ernie Brooks on Bass and Jerry Harrison on Keyboards, and Harrison would later become a founding member of Art Rock legends Talking Heads.

With their new line-up the band became rising stars in their native Boston, thanks to Richman’s already burgeoning voice as a songwriter and their frantic live shows. The band started to get courted by several major labels and signed to Warner Brothers in 1973, after touring relentlessly and making a national sized name for themselves as a live act. However, the band were already growing tired of each other personally, then the band accepted an offer to play a residency at a venue in Bermuda and Richman became infatuated with the laid-back music he heard the locals playing. He started writing similar music and wanted to change the entire sound of the band to reflect it, but the rest of the group weren’t having any of it.

The Modern Lovers split in February 1974, before they’d officially released any music whatsoever. By the following year, Richman was recording as a solo singer/songwriter in California and released a few solo singles on the local Berkeley label. These didn’t take however, and by 1976 Richman had formed a new version of the Modern Lovers as his backing band, and it was at around this time that he started to see some serious commercial success in Europe. This was especially apparent in the United Kingdom, where his Modern Lovers single “Roadrunner” (a song which a nascent Sex Pistols were covering during their first ever shows and rehearsals) reached number 11 in the singles chart in late 1977, and its follow up “Egyptian Reggae” reached the top five a few months later.

After that, Richman spent the first years of the 1980’s on a self-imposed sabbatical, and then spent the rest of the decade alternating between solo releases and releases under the name of The Modern Lovers. His final release with The Modern Lovers came in 1988 and after that he began his solo career proper with 1990’s “Jonathan Goes Country”. The 1990’s were extremely kind to Richman, as his devout cult following was increased exponentially by a series of high profile appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, and an appearance as one half of the Greek Chorus of the hit romantic comedy There’s Something About Mary.

He was also very prolific during that decade, releasing four albums between 1993 and 1998 and has continued releasing stellar records into the 2000’s. Ever since then, he’s been an artist with absolutely nothing to prove, who keeps playing and releasing records for no other reason than his all-consuming love of music. He remains influential to everyone from Joan Jett and the Sex Pistols to The Violent Femmes, Weezer and They Might Be Giants, so to see this man in action should be on the bucket list of every fan of alternative music in general. Highly Recommended.