Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe has made an enormous contribution to contemporary rock as an artist, songwriter and producer and he continues to be an active artist today, being one of many fine artists on the US label YepRoc.

That label is about to re-release Lowe’s first three albums as a limited edition box set. The collection of Dig My Mood, The Impossible Bird and The Convincer has been dubbed The Brentford Trilogy.

Nick Lowe began his musical career in 1965, when he co-founded the band Kippington Lodge, with Brinsley Schwarz. The band later became known as Brinsley. Lowe wrote some of his best-known compositions while a member of Brinsley Schwarz, including “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”, a hit for Elvis Costello in 1979, and “Cruel to Be Kind”, a solo hit for Lowe in 1980.

After leaving Brinsley Schwarz in the mid 1970s, Lowe began playing in Rockpile with Dave Edmunds. The label’s first EP was Lowe’s 1977 four-track release Bowi, apparently named in response to David Bowie’s contemporaneous LP Low.

Nick Lowe produced Elvis Costello’s first five albums, including My Aim Is True, This Year’s Model, and Armed Forces. He also produced The Damned’s first single, “New Rose“, considered the first English punk single, as well as the group’s debut album, Damned Damned Damned.

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. 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.

Lowe’s best-known song from this era is probably “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n’ Roll)”.

In 1979, Lowe married country singer Carlene Carter, daughter of fellow country singers Carl Smith and June Carter Cash and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash. He adopted her daughter, Tiffany Anastasia Lowe. The marriage ended in the mid 1980s, 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’s first son, Roy Lowe, was born in 2005.

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.

A New York Daily News article 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, epitomized 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, specializing 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.”

In March 2009, he released a 49-track CD/DVD compilation of songs which spans his entire career. Proper Records released it in the UK and Europe. It is titled “Quiet Please… The New Best of Nick Lowe”