Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe has had a stellar career as a performer, producer and songwriter. 

As a producer, he helmed the first five Elvis Costello records, the Damned's debut, Graham Parker's first and third, two of then wife Carlene Carter's releases, and most of his own efforts as well as quite a few others. As a songwriter, he had minor hits with his Cruel To Be Kind, So It Goes, and (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass, while other artists made good with (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock 'n' Roll), and The Beast In Me. As a performer, he played bass, sang, and wrote for Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile, and Little Village, and most famously as a solo performer. In the 1990s he reinvented his solo career as he transitioned from pop-rock basher to a more mature, introspective, acoustic-guitar based modern pop crooner.

His solo debut (after six records with Brinsley Schwarz from 1970-1973), 1978's Jesus Of Cool (released in the US with a somewhat different song selection as Pure Pop For Now People) included I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass, So It Goes, Heart Of The City, They Called It Rock, and Marie Provost. The songs are all top notch, displaying Lowe's penchant for melody and lyrical humor. In 2008, Yep Rock released a deluxe version that includes all the songs from both US and UK versions as well as a number of excellent singles released before the album. It is a great record made even greater in the deluxe version.

Next up was Labour Of Lust 1979. Containing Lowe's biggest US hit, Cruel To Be Kind, the record is a strong outing with many other killer tracks including Switch Board Susan, Without Love, Cracking Up, and Skin Deep. Recorded by Rockpile while simultaneously recording Dave Edmund's Repeat When Necessary, the two records show off the strength of Rockpile, with Lowe (bass and vocals), Edmunds (guitar and vocals), Billy Bremner (guitar and vocals) and Terry Williams (drums).

Rockpile would feature on several other Edmunds records as well as Carlene Carter's Musical Shapes 1980, and the only release under the Rockpile name, 1980's Seconds Of Pleasure. Seconds Of Pleasure was a very strong outing, and featured great songs Heart, Play That Fast Thing (One More Time), and When I Write The Book from Lowe's pen. Early pressings of the LP included a four-song 7 inch EP titled Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds Sing The Everly Brothers, and they do a fine job emulating their heroes with acoustic guitars and sweet harmonies.

1982 saw Nick The Knife, a decent follow-up to Labour Of Lust with a more eclectic sound. A slower version of Rockpile's Heart, Let Me Kiss Ya, Too Many Teardrops, and Burning are all good songs, and the rest of it holds up pretty well, too.

The Abominable Showman 1983 contained some good songs in Ragin' Eyes, Time Wounds All Heels, and Man Of A Fool, but it's not his finest hour, and remained out of print for twenty years until a recent reissue in 2017. It's well worth hearing, but not his best.

1984 saw Nick Lowe And His Cowboy Outfit, which contained his classic Half A Boy And Half A Man, as well as You'll Never Get Me Up In One Of Those, the instrumental Awesome, and L.A.F.S. Half A Boy And Half A Man is one of Nick's finer funny lyrics, although it may be a bit too true for some of the females in the audience.

The Rose Of England 1985 (also credited to Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit) was a stronger record than he had made in a while. Darlin' Angel Eyes, She Don't Love Nobody, 7 Nights To Rock, and I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock 'n' Roll) are all good, and most of the record holds up quite well, even if it didn't exactly tear up the charts.

In 1987, Nick played bass on John Hiatt's Bring The Family. The album, arguably Hiatt's best, featured Hiatt (guitar, piano, vocals), Ry Cooder (guitar), Jim Keltner (drums), and Lowe. While not a Nick Lowe record in any sense, it is one of the finest records of 1987 (and maybe all of the 80s), and a near perfect singer-songwriter outing.

1988 brought Pinker And Prouder Than Previous, his best work since Labour Of Lust, and a tragically neglected release. Cobbled together from recordings in at least four studios, it contains both some of Lowe's best songs as well as a number of excellent cover song choices. Wildest Dream, Crying In My Sleep, I Got The Love, and Lover's Jamboree are all great Lowe songs. Love Gets Strange, Black Lincoln Continental, and Big, Big Love are well-chosen covers. Another one that remained out of print for almost twenty years, it is a highlight of his pre-1990 output.

Party Of One 1990 saw Nick produced by his old pal Dave Edmunds, and it is a good record that sometimes sounds just a little too slick for Nick Lowe. You Got The Look I Like, What's Shakin' On The Hill, and All Men Are Liars are the standouts. The last of Nick's pop-rock records, it feels like he needs something new.

In 1992, the foursome that recorded Hiatt's Bring The Family reunited as a band and released their eponymous album, Little Village. How the band that made Hiatt's classic, and included such great writers and performers, could produce such a disappointment is beyond understanding, but the record was dreadful. This was not the something new Nick needed.

Something new came along just in time in the form of The Impossible Bird 1994. A landmark record, The Impossible Bird finds Lowe writing an entire record of strong songs, accompanied by a stellar band (including rockabilly great, guitarist Bill Kirchen), and a stylistic change from the pop-rock of his

previous work to a more casual, country-Americana-rockabilly, thoughtful adult sound that also finds him singing with a new depth of feeling that is impossible to ignore. This is the pivot point for Lowe in which he becomes the singer-songwriter he is today. I'd tell you which are the great songs, but that would be 11 of the 13 tracks. 14 Days, 12-Step Program, Soulful Wind, and Lowe's cover of True Love Travels On A Gravel Road are all fantastic. Easily one of the best records of the 1990s, hands down.

Hard act to follow? Not for Nick. Dig My Mood 1998 sees Lowe step into the role of crooner and continues the remarkably strong songwriting of The Impossible Bird. This one is Nick's version of Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours, all moody heartbreak and resignation, and all quietly fabulous. Faithless Lover, Lonesome Reverie, What Lack Of Love Has Done, Man That I've Become, High On A Hilltop, and I Must Be Getting Over You all find Lowe writing at a very high level, and delivering his woeful lyrics with feeling and nuance. Ivory Joe Hunter's Cold Grey Light Of Dawn concludes the record in fine style.

The Convincer 2001 carries on, and even betters Dig My Mood. Homewrecker, Lately I've Let Things Slide, Cupid Must Be Angry, Has She Got A Friend?, and Let's Stay In And Make Love are among the better songs, and a cover of Johnny Rivers' Poor Side Of Town fits perfectly. The easy swing of these simple live in the studio arrangements, and the perfect delivery of Lowe's singing make for a fine record indeed.

In 2004, there was Untouched Takeaway. A live record documenting the tours for The Impossible Bird and The Convincer, it is a nice document that shows off a bit more energy in the live shows than on the studio outings.

2007 brought At My Age, and the string of excellent work continues unabated. Laid-back arrangements, skilled band, great songs, and Nick's crooning vocal style all working to perfection. A Better Man, I Trained Her To Love Me, Love's Got A Lot To Answer For, and The Other Side Of The Coin are just a few of the great songs.

The Old Magic 2011 lives up to it's name, and follows the formula in place since Dig My Mood. Stoplight Roses, House For Sale, 'Til The Real Thing Comes Along, I Read A Lot, and Restless Feeling are some of the good ones, but the whole record holds up in the same way as the other recent releases. All the same great elements are on display here. Any and all of the Nick Lowe records between The Impossible Bird and The Old Magic are worth owning, and outshine much of what is available in new music in the new millennium.

Quality Street:A Seasonal Selection For The Whole Family showed up in 2013. Lowe gives us his unexpected take on mostly less-known holiday chestnuts, and writes a few new ones that hold up quite well. The sound is similar to his recent work, with a blend of country, rockabilly, torch songs and pop, and avoids the worst of the holiday record cliches in style. His own I Was Born In Bethlehem, A Dollar Short Of Happy (written with Ry Cooder), and especially Christmas At The Airport add some new tunes to the genre, and the whole affair is a refreshing take on the holiday record.

Since 2014, Lowe has toured with Los Straitjackets. He has released a number of singles and EPs recorded with them, and a live album, The Quality Holiday Revue Live 2015, featuring songs from the holiday record as well as others from Lowe's catalog and a couple of Los Straitjackets instrumentals. The most recent EP, Lay It On Me, was released in 2020. A digital live album that documents their fine non-holiday shows together, Live At Haw River Ballroom (available at Bandcamp) was also released in 2020.

Of course there have quite a few compilations. Basher: The Best Of Nick Lowe 1989 is a good single disc best-of that covers his pop years pretty well. The Doings 1999 is a four-disc box set that covers everything up to and including Dig My Mood on three CDs and adds a CD of mostly unreleased live recordings. Quiet Please...The New Best Of Nick Lowe 2009 is a two-CD affair that covers a lot of ground and includes almost a CD worth of his work since 1994. So you get a good sampling of everything. A limited edition included a DVD with a 2007 live performance and a number of song videos.

What a great career. The records he made with Brinsley Schwarz are worth checking out when you find them in the used record shop. His production work with Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and others produced some of the better late 70s- early 80s records. Jesus Of Cool, Labour Of Lust and Pinker And Prouder Than Previous are early classics. The Impossible Bird might well be his best single effort. All of his work between 1994 and 2011 is stellar in a quiet, nuanced way and displays some top quality songwriting and singing. And he keeps chugging along, touring and releasing new music that maintains his reputation as a skilled craftsman and entertainer.