Jonathan Michael Richman -- we like to call him "JoJo" -- is 60 years young today. He has spent 40 of these making the kind of music to make you fall in love. Some was created with the Modern Lovers and some without. Whether the songs are in English or Spanish or French or Portuguese, they always express warm sincerity and clever, to-the-heart ingenuity. The love implied here is a transcendent sort: with and/or through JoJo, you can fall in love with simplicity, cities, your best friend, adventures big ("Give Paris One More Chance") and small ("I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar").
So, what does one give the man who's "always straight" for his birthday? We wish we could bake him a Boston-shaped cake, but instead, we have only our endless gratitude for all his natural, unaffected, sing-along-storytelling-surf-punk magic. Here's one from the beginning of his storied career and a more-recent gem.
Jonathan Richman + The Modern Lovers, then - "I'm Straight" from The Modern Lovers
(1976)
Jonathan Richman, now - "My Affected Accent," from O Moon, Queen of Night on Earth
(2010)
Follow County Grind on Facebook and Twitter: @CountyGrind.