Read more
Beyond his work as a musician, Jon Langford has attracted attention as a visual artist in recent years. Nashville Radio is the first collection of his art. It reproduces 215 paintings, as well as song lyrics and autobiographical writings. The book includes a CD of Langford performing 18 of the printed songs. Langford's "song-paintings" fuse portraiture with imagery derived from folk art, Dutch still life, classic Western wear, and the cold, cold war--all instilled with his trademark sardonic wit. He applies this distinctive style to the depiction of American musical icons like Bob Wills, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash, but also to more ghostly, marginal figures--blindfolded cowboys, astronauts, and dancers--who are jerked around by success and exploitation, fame and neglect. Underlying his work is a deep love of musical lore, twinned with fierce opposition to the death-dealing tendencies in the culture of his adopted homeland, from the killing off of authentic popular music by mass-marketed drivel to the embrace of capital punishment as a response to social ills. Langford's work offers an alternative perspective, recalling "a time when great visionaries and pioneers thrived at the heart of the mainstream--and the lid wasn't on so tight."
About the author
John Langford was bornin Newport, Wales and studied Fine Arts at Leeds University. He is the founding member of legendary Leeds punk band the Mekons, art-metal power trio the Three Johns and militant hard-country rockers the Waco Brothers. Since moving to Chicago in 1992 he has exhibited his artwork extensively, designed covers for albums by Hank Williams and Buddy Guy, campaigned against the death penalty, published a volume of cartoons lampooning the music industry, and become a dad twice over. His current projects include a spoken-word multimedia performance, The Executionera (TM)s Last Songs, with which he will tour North America in 2006; and a solo CD, Gold Brick: Lies of the Great Explorers/Columbus at Guantanamo Bay.
![Jon Langford - Nashville Radio: Art, Words, and Music [With CD]](https://blob.cede.ch/books/129000000/129313000/129313430_17.jpg?v=2)