Concert Review – Nick Lowe & Ry Cooder

There’s no need to write a book to review this concert. The appeal of it was very simple really – great music, played supremely well by a pair of artists who are in complete command of both their music and its place in the milieu.

Even for casual admirers of both  Nick Lowe and Ry Cooder there was plenty enough to recommend this concert. While they are an odd couple in some ways – Lowe,  the spiky, English new waver and Cooder,  the laid back Californian roots bohemian – the fact is that their respective songs fit well together. It’s largely because of their differences rather than their similarities that the coupling works.

Nick Lowe is a consummate songwriter and you could picture him playing a solo acoustic show in an intimate café environment. But his songs benefit from the expansion bought to them by the small band. And lets face it if you are going to have a “sideman” guitar player contributing to your songs Ry Cooder would be high on the list of dream options.

And while Ry Cooder has more than enough material to play any number of completely unique shows the fact that he is sharing the stage and his time with another artist actually helps him bring his music and song selection into focus. It really does work as the best of both worlds.

Lowe contributes the more “singer-songwriterly” elements to the show. He introduces the show as a collection of “old songs, middle aged songs and some songs that are thinking of buying a house”. Among the highlights are Raining,  Raining (from 1982’s Nick The Knife), the gorgeous Little Village song Crying In My Sleep and Half A Boy, Half A Man – which Lowe reminds us was No 1 in Belgium for three weeks ion the 70’s.

Cooder, not surprisingly gets to perform the more musically genre bending songs. There’s any number of highlights including Down In Hollywood, a superb take on Woody Guthrie’s Vigilante Man and Crazy “Bout An Automobile (which he localises by with references to Toyota Corollas!).

The pair opened with a couple of “fool” songs – Lowe’s Fool Who Knows and Cooder’s Fool For a Cigarette – and the irony is not lost. They might be a couple of old fella’s just fooling around but for all the self-deprecation they are both still formidable artists.

Towards the end when they both play their most commercially friendly songs – Lowe’s Peace Love & Understanding (What’s So Funny About) and Cooder’s Little Sister, the job has well and truly been done.

A word about their band. – well actually about Joachim Cooder, who pretty much is the band! Ry’s son is just a great drummer, in fact more a percussionist – who brings a lot to these songs. His playing is subtle, diverse and masterful across a wide range of genres. It’s not often the drummer gets a plug but credit where credit is due.

He was joined on several songs by backing vocalists Juliette Commagere and Alex Lilly. It’s not often that backing vocalists provide that much more than well “backing”. These two however take lead vocals on a song in Spanish which is one of he shows great moments and when providing BV’s they do so creatively and with really interesting parts that really add to the songs.

Joachim also drummed for the opening act – who happened to be Juliette Commagere. Sound familiar? Apparently Commagere and Cooder (the younger) shared a relationship and a band Hello Stranger in Los Angeles. Last year she recorded a solo CD called Queens Die Proudly which would have been on sale last night but for the fact that she sold out the night before in Adelaide.

That’s not surprising. Initially I thought we were going to be ‘treated’ to yet another earnest girl behind a keyboard, singing well meaning but ultimately bland tunes in a soft voice that excused its mildness but being described as “ethereal”. It turned out that Commagere was so much more impressive than that. Her music is atmospheric, yes, but its also surprising and challenging. And her voice is strong and confronting. Some of Joachim Cooder’s best work for the entire night came during Commagere’s set.

Juliette Commagere is an artist worth investigating further – her performance especially after an eight hour drive from Adelaide (she apparently avoids flying where possible) was impressive.

Nick Lowe and Ry Cooder Touring Together

In what promises to be an interesting tour of high quality musicianship and a fascinating combination of musical histories Ry Cooder & Nick Lowe return to Australia for an evening of remarkable performances showcasing their celebrated careers and repertoires.

Touring Australia for the first time in nearly 30 years Cooder – the master slide guitarist – will share the stage with his longtime friend and musical kindred spirit Nick Lowe  as well as Cooder’s son , Joachim on drums, and vocalist Juliette Commagere.

Lowe is credited with convincing Cooder to head out on tour, the seed planted earlier this year whilst performing at a benefit show in San Francisco. From there a short run of European shows has grown into a (to date) 24 show tour that has now been extended to include a limited number of select Australian dates.

“If the two stars had been in any doubt of their reception before the show then the standing ovations & the two demands for encores which followed would have made it clear that Edinburgh loved them.” – The Scotsman

Throughout his extensive career Cooder has enjoyed a wide ranging solo career, as well as playing and recording with such luminaries as Captain Beefheart, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal & Randy Newman. Last year saw the release of I, Flathead, the final part of his acclaimed Californian trilogy, inclusive of Chavez Ravine & My Name Is Buddy.

However to some Cooder is best known for his championing of everything from Hawaiian slack key guitar to Tex-Mes/Norteno, as well as for the world wide success of the Buena Vista Social Club, to his numerous film scores particularly Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas.

Rolling Stone lists Cooder as one of the ten best guitarists of all time, rightly placing him amongst an elite group whose guitar style is instantly identifiable by a single note, in Cooder’s case, a haunting, heart-rendering slide tone.

Cooder & Lowe’s working relationship was established in the late ‘80s in the quartet Little Village.

Lowe’s career began a decade earlier with band Brinsley Schwarz, & later markedly influencing punk rock as producer for Stiff Records recording acts such as The Damned, Elvis Costello & The Pretenders. However, his own musical styling graduated through new wave, roots rock, country rhythm, blues & rock ‘n’ roll – most notable hit singles include Cruel To Be Kind & (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding.

“ The evening was a mixture of the old, the new, the borrowed & the definitely blue. Lowe’s silky voice & sharply observed lyrics… & Cooder showed why he’s considered the best slide player in the world…” – The Scotsman

Performing the opening set and joining Cooder & Lowe on stage is special guest Juliette Commagere. The charismatic lead singer of indie-rock band Hello Stranger has stepped out on her own releasing solo debut album Queens Die Proudly, described by LA Weekly as “a vividly orchestrated pop-art project veering from the wistful and elegiac to the epic and otherwordly… where remarkably memorable songs are given evocative musical twists via her classically designed song structures and sensual ’70s synth stylings.

Saturday November 21
Brisbane Convention Centre

Monday November 23
Sydney State Theatre

Friday November 27
Adelaide Festival Hall

Saturday November 28
Melbourne Palais Theatre

Tuesday December 1
Perth PCEC Riverside Theatre

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”