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Nick Lowe
Background information
Birth name	Nicholas Drain Lowe
Born	March 24, 1949 (1949-03-24) (age 59) Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England
Genre(s)	Rock Pub rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, piano/keyboards, bass
Years active	1966–Present
Label(s)	Columbia Records, Demon Records, F-Beat Records, Proper Records, Radar Records, Reprise Records, Upstart Records, Yep Roc Records, Stiff Records
Associated acts	Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile, Elvis Costello, The Attractions, The Imposters, Huey Lewis and the News, Noise To Go, The Cowboy Outfit, Johnny Cash, Little Village
Website	nicklowe.net

Nick Lowe (born Nicholas Drain Lowe, 24 March 1949, Walton-on-Thames) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.

A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica. He is perhaps best known for his songs "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" (a hit for Elvis Costello), "Cruel to Be Kind" (a US Top 40 single), and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass", as well as his production work with Costello.

He currently lives in Brentford, London, England.

Contents 1 Career 2 Discography 2.1 Studio albums 2.2 Live albums 2.3 Singles 2.4 EPs 2.5 Compilations 2.6 Tributes 3 References 4 Audio samples 5 External links

Career

Lowe began his recording career in 1966 as a member of Kippington Lodge, founded with his friend Brinsley Schwarz, which released a few singles on Parlophone. Three years later Kippington Lodge had changed its name to Brinsley Schwarz and its musical focus to country- and blues-rock. Lowe's best-known songs from the Brinsley Schwarz era are "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding", which was a hit for Elvis Costello in 1979, and "Cruel to Be Kind", a song the other band members rejected, but was later a solo hit for Lowe.

After leaving Brinsley Schwarz in the mid 1970s, Lowe began playing 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 in-house producer. 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). On this and other labels, Lowe would go on to produce The Damned's Damned Damned Damned and many albums by Elvis Costello, including My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, and Armed Forces. In 1977 he produced Dr. Feelgood's album, Be Seeing You, which included his own song, "That's It, I Quit". The following year's Dr. Feelgood album, Private Practice, contained a song Lowe jointly penned with Gypie Mayo - "Milk and Alcohol". Along with "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass", "Milk and Alcohol" is one of only two Lowe compositions to ever reach the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart.¹

His early 'rough & ready' production style earned him the nickname Basher (as in 'bash it out now, tart it up later'). Upon moving from Stiff to Jake Riviera's Radar and F-Beat labels, Lowe became extremely selective in his choice of production tasks.

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, which was not released until the waning days of the collaboration; 1980's Seconds of Pleasure, featuring the Lowe songs "When I Write The Book" and "Heart". However, two of the pair's most significant of solo albums from the period - Lowe's Labour of Lust and Edmund's Repeat When Necessary - were effectively Rockpile albums (as was Carlene Carter's Lowe-produced Musical Shapes album). Rockpile's demise was hastened by a number of conflicts between Lowe's and Edmunds' respective managers, not Lowe and Edmunds themselves.^{citation needed}

Lowe's best-known song from this era is probably "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)" (the verse structure and topic adapted from Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell", but adding a chorus section to Berry's verse-after-verse format). On the 1977 Live Stiffs compilation album with a pickup group called Last Chicken in the Shop, he virtually sneers out his contempt for all concerned; in 1985, fronting Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit on the album The Rose of England, he has not changed the words, but the tone is entirely different, even affectionate (the song was produced by Huey Lewis, while his band The News played on the track).^{citation needed}

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.^{citation needed}

Other well-known Lowe songs include "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass," "All Men Are Liars," and "Cruel to Be Kind", co-written with Ian Gomm and originally recorded with Brinsley Schwarz, a re-recording of which was his only U.S. Top 40 hit, reaching #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1979.

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.

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 over 15 million copies. Because Lowe received royalties from these sales, he suddenly found himself a millionaire.^{citation needed} Freed from commercial constraints, Lowe has recorded more solo albums in his own very individual style to critical acclaim.

A New York Daily News article² 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."

Discography

Studio albums

• Jesus of Cool (1978, UK) (released in the U.S. as Pure Pop for Now People)
• Labour of Lust (1979)
• Nick the Knife (1982)
• The Abominable Showman (1983)
• Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit (1984)
• The Rose of England (1985)
• Pinker and Prouder than Previous (1988)
• Party of One (1990)
• The Impossible Bird (1994)
• Dig My Mood (1998)
• The Convincer (2001)
• At My Age (2007)

Live albums

• Untouched Takeaway (2004)

Singles

• "So It Goes" / "Heart of the City" (1976)
• "Keep It Outta Sight" / "(I've Been Taking The) Truth Drug" (Dynamite Records Holland) (1976)
• "The Bowi EP" ("Born a Woman" / "Shake that Rat" / "Marie Provost" / "Endless Sleep") (1977)
• "Halfway to Paradise" / "I Don't Want the Night to End" (1977)
• "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass" / "They Called It Rock" (1978) - UK #7
• "Little Hitler" / "Cruel To Be Kind" (Brinsleys version) (1978)
• "American Squirm" / "What's So Funny..." (Elvis Costello & Attractions version) (1978)
• "Crackin' Up" / "Basing St" (1979) - UK #34
• "Cruel To Be Kind" / "Endless Grey Ribbon" (1979) - US #12
• "Swith Board Susan" / "Basing Street" (US Columbia 1979)
• "Burning" / "Zulu Kiss" (1982)
• "My Heart Hurts" / "Pet You + Hold You" / "Crackin' Up" / "What's So Funny" (live) (1982)
• "Half A Boy and Half A Man" / "Awesome" (1984) - UK #53
• "Ragin' Eyes" / "Tanque-Rae" (1983)
• "Wish You Were Here" / "How Do You Talk To An Angel" (U.S. Columbia) (1983)
• "L.A.F.S" / "(Hey Big Mouth) Stand Up And Say That" (1984)
• "I Knew the Bride" / "Darlin' Angel Eyes" (1985)
• "Lover Jamboree" / "Crying In My Sleep" (US Columbia) (1988)
• "All Men Are Liars" / "Gai-Gin Man" (1990)

¹

EPs

• Bowi, 7" 45 rpm (Stiff 1977)
• Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers, 7" 33⅓ rpm (F-Beat/Columbia 1980)

Compilations

• A Bunch of Stiff Records (One track, "I Love My Label")
• Stiffs Live (1978) (Nick Lowe's Last Chicken In The Shop got two tracks, "I Knew the Bride" and "Let's Eat", on this live compilation of the Stiff Records' tour.
• 16 All Time Lowes (1984)
• Nick's Knack (1986)
• Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe (1989)
• The Wilderness Years (1991)
• The Doings (1999)

Tributes

• Labour of Love: The Music of Nick Lowe (Telarc, 2001) (features Dar Williams, Tom Petty, and Elvis Costello, among others).
• Lowe Profile: A Tribute To Nick Lowe (Brewery, 2005) (two-disc, 30 song collection featuring Dave Alvin, Foster & Lloyd, Ian Gomm, among others).

References

• Guinness Book of British Hit Singles 7th Edition - 1988

Audio samples

External links

• Official site
• Batty for Music podcast
• All Music Guide

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 22 November 2008, at 12:30.

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