Jonathan Richman

The new group, now billed as Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, found Richman turning away from the harder, Velvet Underground-influenced electric rock of the original Modern Lovers, toward a gentler sound mixing pop with 1950s rock and roll, and including a bigger emphasis on harmony vocals.

During this period Richman recorded a mix of original songs and material by other writers, including Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA", the traditional spiritual songs "Amazing Grace" and "Angels Watching Over Me", and older pop songs like "Emaline", "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz", and "Lydia".

Richman's own songs continued to mix straightforward love themes with more whimsical themes like Martians ("Here Come the Martian Martians"), Leprechauns ("Rockin' Rockin' Leprechauns"), the Abominable Snowman ("Abominable Snowman in the Market"), and mosquitoes ("I'm Nature's Mosquito").

Jonathan Michael Richman (born May 16, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.

Born into a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Natick, Massachusetts, Richman began playing music and writing his own songs in the mid-1960s.

He became infatuated with the Velvet Underground and, in 1969, he moved to New York City, lived on the couch of their manager, Steve Sesnick, worked odd jobs, and tried to break in as a professional musician.

Failing at this, he returned to Boston.

Richman formed the Modern Lovers, a proto-punk garage rock band, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Other notable members of the group were keyboard player Jerry Harrison and drummer David Robinson, who later joined Talking Heads and the Cars, respectively.

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 acoustic and electric 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.

In 1972, they recorded a series of demos with producer John Cale (formerly of the Velvet Underground).

Later in 1972, the group re-recorded some songs, along with other material, with producer Kim Fowley.

By late 1973, Richman wanted to scrap the recorded tracks and start again with a mellower, more lyrical sound, influenced by the laid-back local music he had heard when the band had a residency at the Inverurie Hotel in Bermuda earlier in the year.

These stymied efforts to complete a debut album led to the breakup of the original Modern Lovers in February 1974.

In 1975, Richman moved to California to record as a solo singer/songwriter with the independent Beserkley Records label.

His first released recordings appeared on 1975's Beserkley Chartbusters compilation, where he was backed by members of Earth Quake and the Rubinoos.

The four songs on the compilation also appeared on singles released by Beserkley.

Among these songs were the seminal "Roadrunner" and "Pablo Picasso", which were eventually released four years later in August 1976 as The Modern Lovers by which time the group had broken up.

The album was strange for its time, featuring Velvets-influenced basic three-chord rock ("Roadrunner" – based on just two chords – is an homage to "Sister Ray") at a time when glam and progressive rock were the norm.

In January 1976, Richman put together a new version of the Modern Lovers, which included original Modern Lovers drummer David Robinson, former Rubinoos bassist Greg 'Curly' Keranen and Leroy Radcliffe on guitar.

The album Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers was released in May 1976, three months before the older The Modern Lovers sessions were finally released.

Drummer David Robinson left the group soon thereafter, due to frustration with Richman's quest for lower volume levels, and joined with Ric Ocasek in forming the band the Cars.

After several months as a trio, Richman found a new drummer, D. Sharpe, an avant-garde jazz player on the Boston scene, who later went on to become a member of pianist Carla Bley's band.

Richman's 1977 recording of the children's music standard "The Wheels on the Bus" made explicit his interest in making music for listeners of all ages.

Rock and Roll with the Modern Lovers was released in 1977 and, just as this record began to climb the charts in Europe, Keranen left the group to attend college.

"Roadrunner" reached number 11 in the UK Singles Chart, and its follow-up, the instrumental "Egyptian Reggae", made number 5 in late 1977.

"Egyptian Reggae" was a version of Jamaican musician Earl Zero's reggae song "None Shall Escape the Judgment"; Zero was credited as co-writer on Richman's later versions of the track.

A subsequent live album, Modern Lovers Live, was released in 1978, with Asa Brebner on bass.

In the United Kingdom, Richman was recognised as a progenitor of the punk rock scene, and several of his singles became hits.

Back in Your Life was released in 1979 under the "Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers" moniker, but only about half the disc featured a backup band.

The balance of the album was Richman playing solo.

Following this version of The Modern Lovers' final breakup, Richman went on sabbatical for a few years, staying in Appleton, Maine, and playing at local bars in Belfast, Maine.

These demos were eventually released in 1981 as The Original Modern Lovers LP.

Despite playing live regularly, the Modern Lovers had a difficult time securing a recording contract.

By 1981, Richman was recording and touring once again with various combinations of musicians under the band name Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

The touring band was as large as five backup musicians during parts of 1981, when the group had bassist Curly Keranen once again, along with drummer Michael Guardabascio, keyboard player Ken Forfia, vocalist and guitarist Ellie Marshall, and vocalist Beth Harrington for a gig at New York's Bottom Line.

From 1981 to 1984, Richman most often played live in a trio with Keranen and Marshall.

This expanded Modern Lovers group would go on to record much of the music on the Jonathan Sings (1983), Rockin' & Romance (1985), and It's Time for Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (1986) albums.