Jonathan Richman Sings!

Jonathan Richman turns 60 this year and continues to make great music.  One critic described him as "one of rock's most eccentric and unpredictable cult figures, a performer whose eternally childlike public persona and seeming naiveté . . . tended to obscure the dexterity and craft of his music, which skirted from garage rock to country to Latin stylings and back."  Amen.

The former front man for the proto-punk band, The Modern Lovers, has been quietly recording solid solo albums for the past several years, including Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild (2008) and Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love (2004).  He is back again with O Moon, Queen Of Night On Earth, which mostly features Richman on acoustic guitar and a drummer. The new album has Richman's typically great songwriting, humor, affecting guitar work and that wonderfully familiar Boston accent that you can even detect when he sings in French.

Here is a performance from the early 1990s: