Although Jonathan Richman maintains a firmly established identity as an independent performer, the name occasionally applied to his supporting ensemble—the Modern Lovers—once belonged to a fully formed Boston unit in which he participated as an equal member. That early collective holds such weight in the history of American underground rock that its story merits treatment apart from Richman’s later solo output, even though numerous compositions first captured with the group later anchored his individual recordings.
Following his 1969 high-school graduation, Richman relocated to New York City. Captivated by the Velvet Underground, he arrived with only a brief stay on manager Steve Sesnick’s couch before settling into the vermin-ridden Hotel Albert. Nine months later he returned to his hometown intent on assembling a rock band shaped by what he had absorbed from watching the Velvets. There he quickly assembled a lineup featuring childhood acquaintance John Felice on guitar, David Robinson on drums, and Rolfe Anderson on bass. Their debut performance occurred in September 1970, scarcely a month after his arrival.
By early 1971 both Anderson and Felice had exited, though Felice would return periodically. Bassist Ernie Brooks took Anderson’s place, and keyboardist Jerry Harrison completed the configuration that became the group’s definitive edition. Local club appearances in Boston generated growing attention, prompting the first label interest in autumn 1971 when Warner Bros. executive Stuart Love arranged a multi-track session at Intermedia Studio; the track “Hospital” later included on the Beserkley album The Modern Lovers stems from those recordings.
The resulting demo attracted further industry notice, leading A&M to pursue the band as well. In April 1972 the musicians traveled to Los Angeles for two extensive demo dates—one produced by John Cale for Warner Bros., the other engineered by Alan Mason for A&M—whose contents ultimately filled most of the posthumous album The Modern Lovers. Bootleg copies of the Cale session circulated widely, reaching listeners even in Britain. That June, producer Kim Fowley journeyed to Boston and oversaw a set of low-fidelity recordings later issued in 1981 as the misleadingly titled The Original Modern Lovers.
Live popularity continued, yet a recording contract remained elusive. A September 1973 Los Angeles session with Cale again yielded nothing usable, while a subsequent date at Gold Star Studios under Fowley proved more fruitful; by then, however, the band was disintegrating and Richman had resolved to leave. The Modern Lovers formally disbanded in December 1973. Harrison later joined Talking Heads, Robinson became the drummer for the Cars, Felice founded the Real Kids, and Brooks eventually collaborated with David Johansen. Richman retained the Modern Lovers name but thereafter favored solo acoustic performances and never reconstituted a comparable ensemble.
In 1975 Richman relocated to California and began his association with Beserkley Records. The label gathered surviving tapes from the earlier group and assembled them into the album The Modern Lovers, issued on its Home of the Hits imprint in 1976. Because of its patchwork construction, Richman does not regard it as his debut; he instead designates the entirely different 1977 release Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers as his first proper album. Nevertheless, the 1976 collection was immediately hailed as a landmark and arrived early enough to shape the emerging punk generation on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Sex Pistols, whose rendition of “Road Runner” stands among the stronger moments on their otherwise uneven The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. Trouser Press critic Ira Robbins spoke for many when he described the album as “one of the truly great art rock albums of all time.” At its peak the Modern Lovers represented the most sought-after unsigned live act in the country, and their preserved recordings form a crucial bridge between the Velvet Underground and the punk movement that followed.
