Don't ask long-serving American troubadour what songs he'll be performing in York. He doesn't know and that's the way he likes it, as he tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

REMEMBER how troubadour Jonathan Richman had a habit of emerging out of nowhere to strum his sweet and tender songs in the Farrelly Brothers' dumb comedy, There's Something About Mary?

It was much the same on March 22 when the American singer rang out of the blue from San Francisco at 5pm our time to discuss his gig in York next Friday.

An interview request sent to a Bonnie at Vapor Records on March 5 had evaporated in the e-mail ether with no reply, but 17 days later there was Jonathan, introducing himself in that distinctive dark treacle voice.

The Bostonian voice that gave a charmed world the childlike whimsy and melancholic romanticism of Abominable Snowman In the Market, Here Come The Martian Martians, Buzz Buzz Buzz and Morning Of Our Lives.

You may recall the Velvet Underground-cloning Roadrunner or the novelty instrumental Egyptian Reggae, his twist of hits from the summer of punk in 1977. In those days he was Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers; these days he is Jonathan Richman and his modern drummer, Tommy Larkins.

"That's how we travel, and it's been that way for the past ten years. A little time back we made a tour of Europe with an organ player and bass player but other than it's always been the two of us," says Jonathan, 52.

"Without having a bass player you don't have to announce when you're going to change key. With a drummer you make things up or just go along with him. That's harder with a band, and I just like the sound this way. A drummer is all I need."

Why Tommy? "There was a time when I would call up wherever I was playing next when travelling from town to town and I'd say 'Do you know anyone who can play?' and in Tucson, Arizona, Tommy was recommended to me," Jonathan recalls.

"First, he's good, and secondly, he can play quiet and soft, and that's not easy... and he's fun to tour with, which is really important. He's one of my best mates."

The double act of Richman and Larkins features on Jonathan's new concert DVD, Take Me To the Plaza, filmed at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco in December 2002 and now released in Britain by Sanctuary Visual Entertainment.

"It was made by a local film maker by the name of Miles Montalbano, who did it really simply with just four cameras, and he got a really good sound. Apart from setting up the microphone myself, I trusted him to do it his way, but then I already trusted him because I'd done the music for his movie Love And The Monster, which came out a couple of years ago," says Jonathan.

Take Me To The Plaza showcases seven songs from his last studio album, 2001's Her Mystery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, and five new tunes.

A new album, Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love, is pencilled in for June release by Vapor and Sanctuary: testament to the continuing creative flow of a songwriting talent still attuned to the world of the lonely, the misunderstood and the sentimental.

Don't call him a songwriter, however. "I don't see myself as a songwriter. I see myself as a singer who happens to make up songs to sing," he says.

So, what inspires him to make up those songs? "Moving to San Francisco three years ago has inspired me," he says, pausing for more thought... "You got me all tripped up in words! It's just a great city to be in. We go to the beach a lot. I learn something new every day."

This particular day he learnt - from the Evening Press - that Sanctuary Records would be following up last autumn's re-release of the Modern Lovers self-titled debut album with the April 12 re-issue of Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers and Rock'n'Roll With The Modern Lovers with extra tracks.

"I think that's terrible," he says, in a somewhat startling response. "I don't even know what extra tracks are on there because I haven't been asked. Next time I wish they'd talk to me about it, but then it's easy not to care because no one has talked to me about them."

He is full of surprises, that Jonathan Richman, and you can expect more at next Friday's gig at Fibbers.

"I don't have a plan for a show. It's not a matter of playing old and new material. I just play. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I don't," he says. "Playing this way reminds me of jazz."

Jonathan Richman plays Fibbers, York, April 9. Tickets: £7 advance, £8 door.

Updated: 09:08 Friday, April 02, 2004