Jonathan Richman in Los Angeles

Jonathan Richman is a singer-songwriter from Boston who founded the proto-punk band the Modern Lovers in 1970. His minimalist songs pair plain love songs with whimsical subjects such as Martians and mosquitoes. He later sang as a Greek chorus in the 1998 film "There's Something About Mary". Since the mid-1990s he has played nylon-string acoustic guitar live, often dancing as he performs.