Tribute to Nick Lowe at
The Barns at Wolf Trap, January 5, 2008
Board Mixes by Danny Schwartz
Photos by Kenny Reff of Limelight Productions
A Note from Bill Kirchen featured in the show program that evening…
‘I’ve always felt quite like an outsider. I don’t really belong in the mainstream, and I quite like that. I wanted to be a bit more of a mischief maker’. Nick Lowe
Though he viewed himself as an outsider, Nick Lowe succeeded in establishing himself as a pioneer of the Brit pub rock movement, a visionary of the punk rock genre, a mainstay of both new waver and country music, a revolutionary record producer, and, at heart, a dedicated songwriter. A Tribute to Nick Lowe celebrates a truly phenomenal man revered in music history:
My doings with Nick date back over a third of a century, and he was and is one of my all-time favorite musicians, not to mention blokes. We met in the early 70's when the Brinsleys and Commander Cody crossed guitars in London. Since then I have had the enormous good fortune to play on several of his CDs, tour the world in his band, and in this last year, cajole him into playing bass and singing on my latest CD.
Forty plus years after he launched his music career, Nick Lowe remains a vibrant force, arguably at the top of his game today as a singer and songwriter. Anyone attempting a retrospective on Mr. Lowe confronts a staggering range of songs, productions and collaborations. With Brinsley Schwarz he defined pub rock in the early 70's, then as it gave way to the harder edge punk scene, produced Damned, Damned, Damned by, you guessed it, the Damned. Many consider this to be the first UK punk record. He also produced Elvis Costello's ground-breaking first three albums, plus a steady output of his own discs. Along the way he wrote (and sang) several songs which alone would assure him a slot on the All Star team; I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock 'n' Roll, Cruel To Be Kind, which charted world wide, and (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, which has rightly become this wicked world's de-facto peace anthem. His cohorts have included Dave Edmunds in Rockpile, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt in Little Village, and Johnny Cash.