Notorious New York cult singer/songwriter David Roter was once called "an unholy confluence of
Woody Allen and
Lou Reed." Though
Jonathan Richman is a well-known devotee of
Reed and the
Velvet Underground himself, he might best be termed "an unholy confluence of
Pee Wee Herman and
Sha Na Na." Starting with his band the
Modern Lovers,
Richman developed a musical persona that seemed eternally youthful and naïve; a trapped-in-the-late-'50s teenager who still lived in an imaginary world of sock hops, bongo drums, and nascent lust. Like
Herman, however, he acknowledged the passage of time, yet seemingly remained, as a middle-aged man, just as surprised and bemused by the crazy scene in "I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar," or the fact that friends would begrudge his favored mode of transportation in "You're Crazy for Taking the Bus," as they were when he was a high school freshman. Musically, the Boston native played a stripped-down, shambling, beach-party take on old-time rock & roll and pop, and was heavily influenced by doo wop, occasionally even detouring into country and Latin music (represented here by the full-on Nashville soundtrack "Since She Started to Ride" and the Spanish-language "Harpo en Su Harpa"). Overall,
Vampire Girl: Essential Recordings is a good overview of
Richman's classic Rounder Records material, which, despite its brief ten-track length, gives the casual listener an effective tour through the artist's strange, childlike, oft-hilarious, and always perceptive mind. ~ Pemberton Roach