{"id":3177,"date":"2012-10-17T09:50:27","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T13:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=3177"},"modified":"2022-10-31T08:26:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T12:26:41","slug":"nick-lowe-still-has-that-old-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/17\/nick-lowe-still-has-that-old-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Lowe Still Has That Old Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I saw Nick Lowe<\/strong> twice in concert last week: once at Asheville’s Grey Eagle, doing a full (solo acoustic) set with Chuck Prophet<\/strong> opening; and again the next night as part of the three-night Yep Roc 15 celebration in Carrboro (Chapel Hill) NC. As a run-up to both of these events, I interviewed Lowe and wrote this feature, which originally appeared in<\/em> Mountain Xpress. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n

Nick Lowe has been known as many things: the Stiff Records producer who earned the nickname \u201cbasher;\u201d an originator of pub-rock; a leading light of new wave; a hit songwriter; Johnny Cash’s son-in-law (for a time); and for the last couple of decades, a country-flavored singer-songwriter. It’s in that current guise that the English guitarist is bringing his solo show to Asheville October 10, the night before appearing at the three-day Yep Roc 15 festival\/celebration in Carrboro NC.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lowe explains that country music has long been near to his heart. \u201cMy mother was pretty musical. She had a pretty good collection of records that I used to play all the time.\u201d In addition to the most popular artists of the day, Lowe recalls that his mom \u201cquite mysteriously \u2013 she couldn’t tell me how she had acquired these \u2013 had two ten-inch albums of music by Tennessee Ernie Ford<\/strong>.\u201d Lowe describes Ford’s sound as \u201cCalifornia country,\u201d a sort of c&w \u201cwith a jazz element to it. And I just loved this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike everyone of my generation I loved The Beatles<\/strong>, The Kinks<\/strong>, all those bands,\u201d Lowe says. \u201cBut when I got older, I got more interested in where The Beatles got their influences from.\u201d And that led Lowe toward country. \u201cWhen I heard that stuff, there was no going back for me.\u201d The enduring appeal of that American style of music would inform much of his work. While he was a mainstay of 70s pub rock (a sort of British version of country-rock, not unlike Poco<\/strong>) with Brinsley Schwarz<\/strong>, and then a key player in the British new wave scene (as both producer and performer) the acoustic-flavored country sounds were always there, sometimes just under the surface in his music. Even his most rocking songs \u2013 the hit (Billboard #12) single \u201cCruel to Be Kind\u201d from his 1979 LP Labour of Lust<\/em>, and his \u201c(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,\u201d later a hit for Elvis Costello<\/strong> and now regarded as a standard \u2013 were built on a subtle foundation of country music.<\/p>\n

By the time punk and new wave hit in England, Lowe had established himself as \u201chouse producer\u201d for Stiff, producing albums by Costello, Graham Parker<\/strong>, and many others. He also collaborated with like-minded roots-rocker Dave Edmunds<\/strong> (a producer in his own right) to form Rockpile<\/strong>. That group released only one album under its own name, but served as the backing group on a number of Lowe and Edmunds \u201csolo\u201d albums.<\/p>\n

After the new wave era subsided, Nick Lowe’s music took a more overt turn in a c&w direction. Deftly blending rock, country and an ever-present helping of wry humor, Lowe went on to record a long string of solo albums. 2011’s The Old Magic<\/em> is the fourteenth long-player under his own name. \u201cI still love American music, and it’s obvious that I do,\u201d Lowe says. \u201cBut I love what happens to it when it comes to this side of the Atlantic. We’re in a fabulous position here on this island, because we can choose the bits we want, like making a stew: ‘I’ll have a bit of New Orleans here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of humor, Lowe admits that \u201cI used to overdo it when I was starting out.\u201d He may be thinking of his early solo singles \u201cBay City Rollers We Love You\u201d and its sort of followup, \u201cRollers Show.\u201d Or perhaps \u201cMarie Provost\u201d a jaunty tune from 1978’s Jesus of Cool<\/em> about a woman who died at home only to have her corpse nibbled upon by her orphaned dachshund. (\u201cI do like to shock a bit,\u201d Lowe chuckles.) His goal \u2013 then and now \u2013 was to deflate the \u201cserious and portentous\u201d conventions of much of popular music, by writing lyrics that he describes as \u201ccheeky.\u201d While he insists he’s toned things down, solo numbers like \u201cAll Men Are Liars\u201d (covered by Americana sensation Robert Ellis<\/strong> on the new various-artists collection Lowe Country: The Songs of Nick Lowe<\/em>) and \u201cI Trained Her to Love Me\u201d show that Lowe’s wicked sense of humor remains sharp. \u201cIn order to get your theme across,\u201d Lowe observes, \u201cit seems to make the song a bit more poignant if you can put in a humorous, human element.\u201d He’s happy when his music, as he puts it, \u201craises a wry smile\u201d on the lips of the listener. \u201cI’m actively engaged,\u201d Lowe says, \u201cin trying to bring back cheerful music. I’ve looked around, and I’ve decided that everyone’s writing stuff which is gloomy.\u201d He laughs and adds, \u201cSince the music business is in free fall at the moment, this is a project that will keep me busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on \"\" Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I saw Nick Lowe twice in concert last week: once at Asheville’s Grey Eagle, doing a full (solo acoustic) set with Chuck Prophet opening; and again the next night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[237,1586,2412],"class_list":["post-3177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-asheville","tag-nick-lowe","tag-yep-roc-15","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24162,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions\/24162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}