Nick Lowe | |
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.jpg) Lowe in 2017 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Nicholas Drain Lowe |
| Born | (1949-03-24)24 March 1949 (age 75) Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England |
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| Discography | Nick Lowe discography |
| Years active | 1966–present |
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| Website | nicklowe |
Nicholas Drain Lowe (born 24 March 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure inpub rock,power pop[1] andnew wave,[2][3] Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with being a vocalist, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano andharmonica.
He is best known for the songs "Cruel to Be Kind" (aUS top 40 single) and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" (atop 10 UK hit), as well as his production work withElvis Costello,Graham Parker, and others. Lowe also wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding", a hit for Costello[4] and "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)", a hit forRockpile bandmateDave Edmunds.
Lowe attended the independentWoodbridge School inSuffolk.[5] He began his musical career in 1967, when he joined the band Kippington Lodge, along with his school friendBrinsley Schwarz. They released a few singles on theParlophone record label as Kippington Lodge before they renamed the bandBrinsley Schwarz in late 1969 and began performingcountry andblues-rock. The band were launched by their management company Famepushers Ltd with an appearance at New York'sFillmore East; a planeload of British journalists were flown over by Famepushers to witness the event, but the stunt backfired and Brinsley Schwarz became a laughing stock until they established credibility on the London pub rock circuit.[6] Lowe wrote some of his best-known compositions while a member of the band, including "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding", a hit forElvis Costello in 1979; and "Cruel to Be Kind", also in 1979, Lowe's single and biggest worldwide hit, co-written with bandmateIan Gomm.[7]
After leaving Brinsley Schwarz in 1975 Lowe began playing bass inRockpile withDave Edmunds. In August 1976, Lowe released "So It Goes" b/w "Heart of the City", the first single on theStiff Records label, where he was an in-house producer.[7] The single and the label were initially funded by a loan of £400 fromDr. Feelgood'sLee Brilleaux. The label's firstEP was Lowe's 1977 four-track releaseBowi, apparently named in response toDavid Bowie's contemporaneous LPLow. The joke was repeated when Lowe producedthe Rumour's albumMax as an 'answer' toFleetwood Mac'sRumours. Lowe continued producing albums on Stiff and other labels, including The Damned’s first album.[8] In 1977 he produced Dr. Feelgood's album,Be Seeing You, which included "That's It, I Quit", written by Lowe.Private Practice, issued the next year, included "Milk and Alcohol", written by Lowe andGypie Mayo. This song and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" are the only Lowe compositions to reach the Top 10 of theUK Singles Chart.[9]
Because the two main singers in Rockpile hadrecording contracts with different record labels and managers, albums were always credited to either Lowe or Edmunds, so there is only one official Rockpile album, 1980'sSeconds of Pleasure, which was not released until the waning days of the collaboration.Seconds of Pleasure featured the Lowe songs "When I Write the Book" and "Heart". However, two of the pair's most significant solo albums from the period, Lowe'sLabour of Lust and Edmunds'Repeat When Necessary, were effectively Rockpile albums, as wasCarlene Carter's Lowe-producedMusical Shapes album. Lowe's albumLabour of Lust received a gold certification in Canada in November 1979.[10] "Cruel to Be Kind", drawn from that album, was Lowe's only international Top 40 hit, coincidentally reaching No. 12 in four separate territories: the UK, Canada, Australia, and the US (onBillboard Hot 100 chart) in 1979.[7] "Cruel To Be Kind", which was a new Rockpile re-recording of a previously issued Brinsley Schwarz outtake, also charted in the top 40 in Ireland and New Zealand.
In 1979, Lowe married country singerCarlene Carter, daughter of fellow country singersCarl Smith andJune Carter Cash and stepdaughter ofJohnny Cash.[11] He adopted her daughter, Tiffany Anastasia Lowe. The marriage ended in 1990, but they remained friends, and Lowe remained close to the Carter/Cash family. He played and recorded with Johnny Cash, and Cash recorded several of Lowe's songs. Lowe and Carter's 1979 wedding was filmed and the footage became the basis for the promotional video clip for "Cruel to Be Kind".
After the demise of Rockpile, Lowe toured for a period with his band Noise to Go and later with the Cowboy Outfit, which also included the noted keyboard playerPaul Carrack. Lowe was also a member of the short-lived mainly studio projectLittle Village withJohn Hiatt,Ry Cooder andJim Keltner, who originally got together to record Hiatt's 1987 albumBring the Family.[7]
In 1990 he wrote a song, "Who Was That Man?"[12] about a man who died in theKing's Cross fire. In 1992 "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" wascovered byCurtis Stigers on the soundtrack album toThe Bodyguard, an album that sold about 44 million copies worldwide.[4]
A New YorkDaily News article[13] quoted Lowe as saying his greatest fear in recent years was "sticking with what you did when you were famous." "I didn't want to become one of those thinning-haired, jowly old geezers who still does the same shtick they did when they were young, slim and beautiful," he said. "That's revolting and rather tragic." Rock critic Jim Farber observed, "Lowe's recent albums, epitomised by the newAt My Age, moved him out of the realms of ironic pop and animated rock and into the role of a worldly balladeer, specialising in grave vocals and graceful tunes. Lowe's four most recent solo albums mine the wealth of American roots music, drawing on vintage country, soul and R&B to create an elegant mix of his own."
Lowe was quoted as saying that he had "escaped from the tyranny of the snare drum" inNo Depression, (September–October 2001) when explaining his move away from regular pop music that would get played on mainstream radio.[14]
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In 2008,Yep Roc andProper Records released a thirtieth anniversary edition of Lowe's first solo album,Jesus of Cool (entitledPure Pop for Now People in the US, with a slightly different track listing). The re-issue includes tracks from the British and American releases in addition to several bonus tracks. In March 2009, he released a 49-track CD/DVDcompilation of songs spanning his entire career. Proper Records released it in the UK and Europe, entitledQuiet Please... The New Best of Nick Lowe.
In September 2010 Yep Roc issuedThe Impossible Bird,Dig My Mood andThe Convincer on vinyl for the first time, and after a one-night reunion concert with Elvis Costello in October in San Francisco,[15] Lowe embarked on his first non-solo United States tour "this millennium." His backing band consisted ofGeraint Watkins (keyboards), Robert Treherne (drums),Johnny Scott (guitar) and Matt Radford (bass). In March 2011,Yep Roc reissued Lowe's 1979 solo albumLabour of Lust.[16]
Lowe played Glastonbury 2011, performing a short solo set of Brinsley Schwarz tracks on The Spirit of 71 stage, where they played back in 1971, before heading to the Acoustic Stage for a full band show. On 29 October 2013, he released his first Christmas album,Quality Street, on Yep Roc Records.[17] He performed two songs from this album on 7 December taping of NPR'sWait Wait... Don't Tell Me![citation needed]
In spring 2019 he embarked on tours, in both the US and UK, with Americaninstrumental rock bandLos Straitjackets.[18][19][20] In June 2019 Lowe played at theGlastonbury Festival.[21]
Lowe has been married twice. His first marriage to country singerCarlene Carter lasted from 1979 to 1990. He married designer Peta Waddington in 2010. The couple have a son.[22][23]
Lowe lives inBrentford, London, England.[24]
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Lowe's best-known songs include his own hits:
He also wrote songs most famous for their cover versions:
Some songs were written or co-written for albums he produced:
Lowe also wrote a number of songs with clever wordplay that qualify as "novelties", among them:
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Lowe's work as a producer is at least as notable as his work as a performer and songwriter. His early 'rough and ready' production style earned him the nickname "Basher", inspired by his supposed instructions to bands to 'bash it out—we'll tart it up later'. Beginning with his tenure at Stiff Records as an in-house producer in 1976, Lowe was responsible for producing some of the benchmark releases of punk and new wave, including theDamned's first single, "New Rose", considered the first English punk single, as well as the group's debut album,Damned Damned Damned.
Lowe also producedElvis Costello's first five albums, from 1977 to 1981, includingMy Aim Is True,This Year's Model, andArmed Forces, which spun off numerous UK hit singles. Other Stiff acts produced by Lowe included punk parody groupAlberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, new wave singerWreckless Eric and roots rockerMickey Jupp.
Other clients (both before and after Lowe left Stiff in 1978) included thePretenders (the 1978 debut single "Stop Your Sobbing", which was a modest UK and U.S. hit); Graham Parker (his well-received first and third albums);Dr. Feelgood (several LPs, and their biggest hit single, 1979's "Milk and Alcohol");Johnny Cash (his 1980 single "Without Love", a minor hit on the U.S. and Canadian country charts); and his then-wifeCarlene Carter (2 albums in 1980 and 1981).
From 1982 to 1985, he produced material forPaul Carrack,John Hiatt,the Fabulous Thunderbirds andthe Men They Couldn't Hang. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Lowe became more selective in his choice of outside production tasks, helming the 1986 LPBlood & Chocolate for Elvis Costello, a 1988 single ("Windows of the World" b/w "1969") for the Pretenders, and theKatydids' self-titled debut album of 1990. After that, Lowe essentially retired from producing recordings for other acts, although the country-rock bandthe Mavericks persuaded him to produce one track for theApollo 13 soundtrack in 1995.
In 2011,The New York Times claimed: "The 40-year career of the English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe constitutes a paradox: the songs he has written are better known than he is."[4]Alex Turner, of theArctic Monkeys, described Lowe as one of his favourite lyricists.[25] In another interview, he said that he was "blown away" and sent "back to square one" by Lowe's songwriting.[26]
Wilco covered the Nick Lowe song "I Love My Label" as the B-side to "I Might" (2011) on their own dBpm label. Nick Lowe toured with Wilco for their albumThe Whole Love and would make guest appearances on his "Cruel to Be Kind" and (along withMavis Staples) appeared onstage for a cover ofthe Band's song "The Weight".
In this setting, Lowe says, freed from the 'tyranny of the snare drum,' he's able to sing quietly, the better to explore the deeper nooks and crannies of his mature voice.
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