Wednesday 10/16 at The Southern Café and Music Hall
In many ways, Jonathan Richman has traveled far from the emotive rock ‘n’ roll where he made his original splash with The Modern Lovers in the early 1970s. Emotive, jubilant, and at times, the lonesome reflections of a sensitive young man, the originality of the Boston-based quintet he led bore legendary fruit that would later be covered by the likes of David Bowie (“Pablo Picasso”), the Sex Pistols (“Roadrunner”), and Siouxsie and the Banshees (“She Cracked”). After Richman eventually turned the page on The Modern Lovers, his career gave him the leeway to create even more honest-sounding music: gingerly strummed guitar, and his inimitable, unassuming nasal voice chuckling through his playful lyrics—some of which could just as easily be the stuff of children’s books.
In the last decade or so, Richman has opted for an acoustic guitar, and expanded his local scope about driving past the Stop & Shop and celebrating the virtues of “Cold Pizza” (2022) into a journey that leans spiritual, physical, and globally multilingual, as evident by last year’s “Yatasamaroun” and “En La Discoteca Reggaeton.”
When he played the Southern back in 2018, he was surprisingly less the aw-shucks inoffensive wisecracking character and more of an introspective poet-guru from another age. Floating under the lights with his guitar not hanging about him with a strap, but propped up in hand and arm, he strummed softly, quietly, and, at points, hypnotically. But then he chastised an audience member for filming him on a phone (“If you want to watch TV, you should have stayed home”). He also included a couple of his bigger solo numbers, such as the good time “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar,” but the overall feel veered toward a more philosophical place, with musings about the nature of suffering and the depth of love.
For the upcoming return to the venue, he’ll once again be accompanied by drummer Tommy Larkins, who keeps Richman’s songs in line without confining them to a backbeat. His rippling rhythms are brushed out with intuition, giving the feel a jazz combo-like exploration. These are still very much Richman’s well-crafted songs, treated with the air to soar, the room to amble, and the delicate hands to work intricate, intimate magic.