Jon Langford

The 2025 SarahFest Artist-in-Residence is Jon Langford  (born October 11, 1957). Jon Langford is a Welsh-born, Chicago-based musician and artist. He is a founding member of punk band The Mekons, who have recently released their twenty-second studio album Horror, described by Fire Records as, “a horribly prescient reflection of the world in its current miasma and how we got here.” As a solo artist, Langford has released a number of albums, the most recent being 2024’s Where It Really Starts; he has also guest-starred on recordings for artists such as the Exs, The Old 97s, Chip Taylor, and Alejandro Escovedo. Other musical ventures include The Three Johns, (made up of himself, vocalist John Hyatt, and bassist John Brennan), the alt-country group The Waco Brothers, and the country music ensemble Pine Valley Cosmonauts. He has also been involved with Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent, a group of musicians from Langford’s hometown of Newport, Wales. Langford uses his music and artwork as a lens through which to explore the cultural nostalgia which shapes the American identity and political landscape. 

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum characterises Langford’s visual artwork as, “celebrat[ing] a blend of punk rock and the most American of Americana—rock & roll and country music.” Langford is an accomplished painter, known for his portraits of country music stars like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams, as well as other figures from American musical history such as Marty Stuart, The Meters, and Emmylou Harris. Langford was an artist-in-residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2015, which led to a series of collaborations between himself and Hatch Show Print’s master printer Jim Sherraden. Their work combines Langford’s artistic focus on the legacies and mythologies of country music and Americana more broadly, with Sherraden’s emphasis on the tradition and history of printmaking. Most recently, their collaborative work can be found on exhibition at the LSU Museum of Art from June 12 to September 21, 2025, where they explore the legacy and craftsmanship of the letterpress tradition. Langford’s work can be found in Yard Dog Art Gallery (Austin, Texas), LeMieux Galleries (New Orleans, Louisiana), and Artdog Gallery (London, UK), amongst others. A collection of Langford’s artwork, interspersed with autobiographical writing and song lyrics, can be found in his debut book Nashville Radio.

Langford previously appeared at the inaugural SarahFest celebration in 2015, where he performed live at the Thacker Mountain Radio Show.