Nicholas Drain Lowe (born 24 March 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in pub rock, power pop[1] and new wave,[2][3] Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with being a vocalist, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica.
Lowe attended the independent Woodbridge School in Suffolk.[5] He began his musical career in 1967, when he joined the band Kippington Lodge, along with his school friend Brinsley Schwarz. They released a few singles on the Parlophone record label as Kippington Lodge before they renamed the band Brinsley Schwarz in late 1969 and began performing country and blues-rock. The band were launched by their management company Famepushers Ltd with an appearance at New York's Fillmore 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 for Elvis Costello in 1979; and "Cruel to Be Kind", also in 1979, Lowe's single and biggest worldwide hit, co-written with bandmate Ian Gomm.[7]
After leaving Brinsley Schwarz in 1975 Lowe began playing bass in Rockpile with Dave Edmunds. In August 1976, Lowe released "So It Goes" b/w "Heart of the City", the first single on the Stiff Records label, where he was an in-house producer.[7] The single and the label were initially funded by a loan of £400 from Dr. Feelgood's Lee Brilleaux. The label's first EP was Lowe's 1977 four-track release Bowi, apparently named in response to David Bowie's contemporaneous LP Low. The joke was repeated when Lowe produced the Rumour's album Max as an 'answer' to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. 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 and Gypie Mayo. This song and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" are the only Lowe compositions to reach the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart.[9]
Because the two main singers in Rockpile had recording 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's Seconds 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's Labour of Lust and Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary, were effectively Rockpile albums, as was Carlene Carter's Lowe-produced Musical Shapes album. Lowe's album Labour 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 (on Billboard 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 singer Carlene Carter, daughter of fellow country singers Carl Smith and June Carter Cash and stepdaughter of Johnny 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 player Paul Carrack. Lowe was also a member of the short-lived mainly studio project Little Village with John Hiatt, Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner, who originally got together to record Hiatt's 1987 album Bring the Family.[7]
In 1990 he wrote a song, "Who Was That Man?"[12] about a man who died in the King's Cross fire. In 1992 "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" was covered by Curtis Stigers on the soundtrack album to The Bodyguard, an album that sold about 44million copies worldwide.[4]
A New York Daily 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 new At 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" in No Depression, (September–October 2001) when explaining his move away from regular pop music that would get played on mainstream radio.[14]
Lowe performing at the Ealing Blues Festival in 2019
In 2008, Yep Roc and Proper Records released a thirtieth anniversary edition of Lowe's first solo album, Jesus of Cool (entitled Pure 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/DVD compilation of songs spanning his entire career. Proper Records released it in the UK and Europe, entitled Quiet Please... The New Best of Nick Lowe.
In September 2010 Yep Roc issued The Impossible Bird, Dig My Mood and The 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 of Geraint Watkins (keyboards), Robert Treherne (drums), Johnny Scott (guitar) and Matt Radford (bass). In March 2011, Yep Roc reissued Lowe's 1979 solo album Labour 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's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me![citation needed]
Lowe has been married twice. His first marriage to country singer Carlene Carter lasted from 1979 to 1990. He married designer Peta Waddington in 2010. The couple have a son.[22][23]
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 the Damned's first single, "New Rose", considered the first English punk single, as well as the group's debut album, Damned Damned Damned.
Other clients (both before and after Lowe left Stiff in 1978) included the Pretenders (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-wife Carlene Carter (2 albums in 1980 and 1981).
From 1982 to 1985, he produced material for Paul Carrack, John Hiatt, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Men They Couldn't Hang. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Lowe became more selective in his choice of outside production tasks, helming the 1986 LP Blood & Chocolate for Elvis Costello, a 1988 single ("Windows of the World" b/w "1969") for the Pretenders, and the Katydids' self-titled debut album of 1990. After that, Lowe essentially retired from producing recordings for other acts, although the country-rock band the Mavericks persuaded him to produce one track for the Apollo 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 the Arctic 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 album The Whole Love and would make guest appearances on his "Cruel to Be Kind" and (along with Mavis Staples) appeared onstage for a cover of the Band's song "The Weight".
Stiff Records is a British independent record label formed in London, England, by Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera. Originally active from 1976 to 1986, the label was reactivated in 2007.
Brinsley Schwarz were a 1970s English pub rock band, named after their guitarist Brinsley Schwarz. With Nick Lowe on bass and vocals, keyboardist Bob Andrews and drummer Billy Rankin, the band evolved from the 1960s pop band Kippington Lodge. They were later augmented by Ian Gomm on guitar and vocals.
F-Beat Records was a record label set up by Andrew Lauder and Jake Riviera in 1979. Its first release, "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" by Elvis Costello & the Attractions, reached number 4 in the UK charts, the highest singles chart position the label attained. The first album released on the label was Costello's Get Happy!!, which peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart.
Jake Riviera is a British music business entrepreneur, best known for his management of such performers as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe and as co-founder of the pioneering British indie label, Stiff Records.
Labour of Lust is an album by British singer-songwriter Nick Lowe. Produced by Lowe, it was released in 1979 by Radar Records in the UK and Columbia Records in the US. It was recorded and released at the same time as Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary and features the same Rockpile personnel. It led off with "Cruel to Be Kind," Lowe's only major US hit.
Terrence Williams is a Welsh rock drummer. During the 1970s and early 1980s Williams was drummer with Dave Edmunds / Rockpile and Man. Rockpile split in 1981 and Williams joined Dire Straits from 1982 until 1988.
"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" is a 1974 song written by English singer/songwriter Nick Lowe. Initially released by Lowe with his band Brinsley Schwarz on their 1974 album The New Favourites of... Brinsley Schwarz, the song was released as a single and did not chart.
Rockpile were a British rock band of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Noted for their strong pub rock, rockabilly and power pop influences, they were a foundational influence on new wave. The band consisted of Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams (drums).
Ian Robert Gomm is a British singer-songwriter, who was the rhythm guitarist for Brinsley Schwarz from 1970 to 1974. He was named "Best Rhythm Guitarist" by NME in 1971.
William Murray Bremner is a Scottish guitarist, best known for his work in the band Rockpile and on many of Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds' albums. He has also played with The Pretenders, Shakin' Stevens, Carlene Carter and The Coal Porters, as well as issuing four solo albums.
Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit is a 1984 album by British singer-songwriter Nick Lowe. The record marked the official debut of Lowe's new band, the Cowboy Outfit. Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit was reissued in 2000 by Demon Music Group.
The Rumour were an English pub rock new wave rock band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are best known as the backup band for Graham Parker, whose early records were credited to Graham Parker & the Rumour. However, the Rumour also recorded on their own, releasing three albums: Max (1977), Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs and Krauts (1979), and Purity of Essence (1980).
Roger Béchirian is an English engineer and record producer. Béchirian was a key player in the British new wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, best known for his work with Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack, Elvis Costello, The Undertones, Dave Edmunds, The Monkees, the Flamin' Groovies, and Squeeze. He was also a member of the pseudonymous new wave group Blanket of Secrecy, which issued one album in 1982. More recently, Béchirian has worked with the Trashcan Sinatras and Bell X1.
Robert Charles Andrews is an English keyboardist and record producer.
Quiet Please... The New Best of Nick Lowe is a 49-track career-spanning collection of songs written by British songwriter Nick Lowe. As well as his solo work, it also features many of his collaborations with the likes of Rockpile, Brinsley Schwarz, Paul Carrack and Little Village. The compilation was released by Proper Records in the UK and Europe and by Yep Roc in the US. The collection was compiled by Gregg Geller.
Martin Belmont is an English rock and country-blues guitarist.
"Cruel to Be Kind" is a song co-written by Nick Lowe and his former bandmate Ian Gomm while the pair were in Brinsley Schwarz. The song only appeared as the 1978 B-side of "Little Hitler" until Columbia Records convinced Lowe to rerecord it as a potential solo single for his 1979 album Labour of Lust. Musically, the song was inspired by "The Love I Lost" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, an influence reflected in more recent performances of the song.
"So It Goes" is a song written and recorded by Nick Lowe in 1976. The single was Nick Lowe’s solo debut following his departure from Brinsley Schwarz, and was the first single released on Stiff Records.
Nick Lowe is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and producer. His discography consists of 14 studio albums, 1 live album, 3 EPs, 23 singles, and 6 compilations. In addition, he has been a performer and producer on numerous albums by other artists.
David Robinson, nicknamed Robbo, is an Irish music executive, music video director, record producer, music manager, and photographer. He is best known as the co-founder with Jake Riviera of Stiff Records where he signed up The Damned, Tracey Ullman, Kirsty MacColl, The Pogues, and Madness. He had also managed Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Ian Dury before signing them up to Stiff.
↑ Cruel to be kind of old "The man originally known as one of the architects of the new wave sound of the '70s – having served as house producer for the legendary Stiff Records, as a pioneer of neo-power pop in his solo albums", New York Daily News, 17 June 2007
↑ Cantwell, David (September–October 2001). "His aim is true: Nick Lowe has found the way to play wisdom over witticism". No Depression. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 3 July 2013. 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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