Will Birch - Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe

Rock and roll offers no precedent for Nick Lowe. You have to go outside rock and roll to pop art, to the modern novel maybe to find anybody who compares to Lowe. Oh, there are plenty of human ironists, lustful romantics and cheeky genre players making their way through record company corridors and into recording studios, but Lowe is all of these and more.

Kit Rachlis, Rolling Stone, 1979

Nick Lowe is a god cast in marble at the foot of Mount Olympus, draped in purple velvet and holding a jade guitar.

laughingcrow, Elvis Costello Fan Forum, 2003

Firstly, I should declare an interest. I have been a fan of Nick Lowes music for nearly fifty years and he is, I would like to think, a friend.

For the record, other songwriters that ring my bell are John Lennon and Paul McCartney, of course; Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, creators of those mini-movie vignettes for the Coasters; Smokey Robinson, whose Motown classics are exemplified by The Tracks Of My Tears; Ray Davies, for his proto metal rave-ups and dour views of English suburban life; and the immaculate Bob Dylan. There are many more, including Buddy Holly, Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

Unlike most of those famous names, Lowe is not an innovator, yet he has mastered multiple styles and his best work faithfully echoes the greats. If proof of his skills were needed, his original compositions have been recorded by a wide range of artists, from former enfant terrible Elvis Costello, to The Godfather of Rhythm and Soul Solomon Burke; from household names including Engelbert Humperdinck, Diana Ross and Johnny Cash, to well-known vocalists such as Curtis Stigers, Tom Petty and Rod Stewart. In terms of musical and artistic credibility, Lowe is simply peerless.

Never a superstar, due to an unhurried work rate and a reluctance to play the fame game, he has nevertheless enjoyed hit records as an artist, record producer and composer. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s, firstly as one of the masterminds behind the famously independent Stiff Records, and secondly as a driving force in the mighty Rockpile. Front and centre in all things New Wave, he scored an international smash hit in 1979 with Cruel To Be Kind, one of at least three of his songs you know by heart, or so his publicist insists.

The influential music press of the day worshipped him and endorsed his every move, splashing his face across full-page features week after week. His natural wit and turns of phrase guaranteed him countless column inches, inclining him to weigh his review clippings rather than read them.

The plaudits weigh heavy; he has been the subject of three tribute albums and described as Britains greatest living songwriter, and even a contender for greatest living Englishman, which he would no doubt find embarrassing. But he knows hes very good at what he does best, which is to create and perform exceptional music within his chosen genre-set a mix of country, soul and pop that swings, and is more roll than rock.

Also, unlike almost any other British musician, he instinctively writes and sings timeless songs that sound American. A romantic explanation could be the fact that he is as exclusively revealed in this book (please see the recounting his family history) a third-generation descendant, the great-grandson no less, of an unlikely Euro-American love affair between an Austrian baroness and an American Civil War veteran.

No shit! he exclaimed as I unveiled the fruits of my research, causing him to envisage distant relatives with stovepipe hats and brocade waistcoats. And that he is also distantly related, by marriage, to the inventor of the jukebox seems highly appropriate, for Nick Lowe is surely the human equivalent.

He is the assimilator, the thinker, the contrarian. At a pub in Goodge Street, wearing a fairly loud, chalk-checked suit, he asked the bartender for Half of bitter please, in one of those little jugs with a handle, if you have one. This was at a time when most British men asked for a pint of beer in a straight glass, or sleever. I sensed he was either paying his respects to tradition the gentlemanly half-pint or this was simply his way of being different.

His choice of outfit was occasionally askew, perhaps deliberately so. When punk broke in 1977 and the youth audience was suddenly polarised, he straddled the chasm of taste and opinion, his coiffure long and lank throughout the spiky-hair era, and he clung to his cowboy boots when everyone else was in plimsolls. Today, his postmodern quiff, heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and informed dress sense bear all the hallmarks of the ex-Mod. Its all smoke and mirrors, he will say.

Never wanting to align himself with anything remotely in vogue, and unfazed by fashion, he remains defiant, his own man. I recall him once turning up to an appointment wearing a pretty cool, three-quarter length, black leather coat, twinned with socks and sandals a controversial look, especially in Mayfair.

My first close encounter with him occurred in 1974 when my own group of the time were on a bill in London with the kings of the pub rock scene, Brinsley Schwarz, appearing that night under their code name, the Electricians. Nick, his hair already showing signs of premature greying, was their charismatic, six-foot-something frontman. Backstage post-show, while other band members sat more or less alone with their guitars, he was pretty much the centre of attention for a giggle of girls whose adulation he appeared to enjoy. No doubt some of those same girls and many others around the world still carry a torch for Nick, probably with a supply of long-life batteries.

Unlike his buddy Elvis Costello, he is mysteriously absent from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a state of affairs I imagine to be the result of some administrative oversight. Or perhaps its simply the dearth of actual hits. He was, after all, the Jesus of Cool, a handy moniker from his debut album and a persona that distanced him from the commercial truth. And as cool as he was, he could be a bit of a buffoon, unable to resist throwing zany shapes for press photographers.