Jon Langford

Jonathan Denis Langford (born 11 October 1957) is a Welsh musician and artist based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Langford is a founder member of the punk band The Mekons, the post-punk group The Three Johns, and the alternative country ensembles The Waco Brothers and Pine Valley Cosmonauts.

Langford was born in Newport, Wales, the youngest son of Kit Langford and Denis Langford, a registered chartered accountant for Lloyd's Brewery and Deloitte & Touche. Langford's older brother is science-fiction author and critic David Langford, who lives in Reading, Berkshire.

When he was young, Langford would visit his grandparents in Croesyceiliog, whose family friend ran two pubs, the Cambrian Arms and The Six in Hand. He attended Gaer Infants School and Gaer Junior School, then Brynglas Primary School, the Newport High School middle school on Queen's Hill. In 1972–1973, after playing rugby and football, at the age of 15 Langford decided he liked playing music better. He played a lot of David Bowie and was listening to a lot of Man.

Langford attended art school at University of Leeds as a painter. He left school temporarily when The Mekons were founded, but later went back to college and finished his degree.

Since the mid-1980s, Langford has been one of the leaders in incorporating folk and country music into punk rock. He has released a number of solo recordings as well as recordings with other bands outside of The Mekons, most notably the Waco Brothers, which he co-founded after moving to Chicago in the early 1990s.

In a 2010 interview, Langford said his earliest influences were Tom Jones, Slade, T. Rex, The Kinks, Johnny Cash, Man and Black Sabbath.

Langford was originally the drummer for the punk band "The Mekons" when it formed at the University of Leeds in 1977, but he later took up the guitar as other band members left. The Mekons were signed to Virgin Records but according to Langford they "got fired." They played their first United States appearance on New Year's Eve in 1980, gave up live performances for a while, and released 1982's The Mekons Story. They began performing again in public in 1984, playing their first shows as benefits for the British miners' union. After being signed by major American label A&M Records in the late 1980s, label shuffling resulted in the band trying to leave the label. In response, they recorded Curse of the Mekons, which the label refused to release, becoming available in the U.S. only as an import. A documentary called The Revenge of the Mekons was released in 2014 by director Joe Angio. The Mekons continue to record and perform live, as of 2019.^{[citation needed]}