Friday, July 01, 2016

Happy Birthday, Jonathan Richman!


Somehow I missed this: May 16 was the 65th birthday of singer Jonathan Richman.

Jonathan Richman is really hard to describe, but he's sort of a weird blend of children's singer Raffi and the Ramones. When I lived on Ellsworth Street in Berkeley from 1979 to 1983, he lived quite nearby, and we often saw him performing in Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus (where the photo above was taken, in 1981), or the club Berkeley Square on University Avenue. Once I saw him walking down the street, ran up to my apartment, and got one of his albums out for him to autograph, which he gladly did. I even have a picture of Jonathan and me together, but I only show it to close friends.

Here are a few of my favorite Jonathan Richman songs:

Happy 65th birthday, Jonathan!

1 comment:

delia jones said...

came looking for a david warren article, but pleased to see this as well. possibly the greatest lyricist of the awkward genre next to gordon gano - but above, and to the left :)