Dec 14

Jonathan Richman

JONATHAN RICHMAN
 
 
Jonathan Richman  (born May 16, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.  In 1970 he founded the Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band.  Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key, generally acoustic, backing.  He is known for his wide-eyed, unaffected and childlike outlook, and music that, while rooted in rock and roll, is influenced by music from around the world.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

Melissa Etheridge paved the way for greater acceptance of gays in the greater American society and, not incidentally, opened the door for other lesbian musicians like Phranc, whom I have heard described as “everyone’s favorite Jewish lesbian folksinger”.  Phranc has a strong singing voice and is quite adept at songwriting; she also has a punk rock edge that she has displayed on several of her albums.  The above album that I own, Positively Phranc includes a rewrite of Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” (originally recorded by Richman’s proto-punk rock band the Modern Lovers) as “Gertrude Stein”.  

 

(October 2013)

 

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In 1972, Kim Fowley recorded some songs by the proto-punk band the Modern Lovers, building on previous recordings that had been produced by John Cale.  As Wikipedia reports:  “These included re-recordings of ‘She Cracked’, ‘Astral Plane’, ‘I’m Straight’, ‘Girlfriend’, and two versions of ‘Roadrunner’, as well as the songs ‘Walk Up The Street’, ‘Dance With Me’ and the a capella ‘Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste’.  [Bandleader Jonathan] Richman also credited James Osterberg (Iggy Pop) as co-writer on ‘I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms’ as a way of acknowledging that the song borrows a Stooges guitar riff.” 

 

The recordings were first released on Kim Fowley’s short-lived Mohawk Records (a subsidiary of Bomp! Records) in 1981 under the title The Original Modern Lovers.   

 

(January 2015/1)

 

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Joey Vain and Scissors played early punk rock classics like the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat” and Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” but soon began writing their own songs with titles like “New Tattoo”, “Why Do I Have to Wear This Collar”, and “That’s What I Like”.  They put together a six-song demo and started playing local clubs.  

 

(March 2015)

 

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Another important band of the same time period, the Modern Lovers was formed in 1970 by guitarist and singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman with John Felice (guitar), David Robinson (drums), and Rolfe Anderson (bass). Richman had spent 9 months in New York City after becoming infatuated with the Velvet Underground before returning home to Boston and forming the band. The Modern Lovers played their first date in September 1970, barely a month after Richman’s return and became a hot live band. Anderson was later replaced by Ernie Brooks, and Jerry Harrison (a future member of Talking Heads) joined up on keyboards.
 
Getting their unique sound on record proved to be difficult, however, with John Cale, Kim Fowley and Allan Mason trying in various sessions to get some usable songs on tape in the early 1970’s. No recordings had been released until after the Modern Lovers broke up in December 1973; by the time Beserkley Records put out an album of their early recordings called simply The Modern Lovers (1976), Jonathan Richman had softened his sound and assembled a different band with a different style called Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Their debut album, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers came out in the same year on the same label, so it is not surprising that the original proto-punk band has largely dropped from sight.
 
The Modern Lovers is probably best known for their song “Pablo Picasso”. (Another of their tracks is “Roadrunner”; “Roadrunner” was covered by Sex Pistols on their little-known, sort-of second album, The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle). I actually first heard the song on the Phranc album, Positively Phranc (1991), where (with Jonathan Richman’s blessing) she had rewritten the song as “Gertrude Stein” in honor of the famed Paris avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein who was the life partner of Alice B. Toklas – her 1954 recipe for marijuana brownies was celebrated in the Peter Sellers film, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968). An excerpt of “Pablo Picasso” (as performed by Burning Sensations) appears in the 1985 cult classic film, Repo Man that has been in heavy rotation on my TiVo for most of the year.  
(December 2016)
Last edited: March 22, 2021