Most of the books I read for this column I'd gladly — given unlimited time — read on my own. But I don't take my access to this space as a license to force enthusiasms on you. (Well, not every week.)
So I thought Will Birch's Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe (Da Capo, $28) was going to be a book I would read for my own pleasure. Because as big a deal as the subject figures in my life, most people have never heard of Lowe, and those who have might think of him as a one-hit-wonder or a member of Rockpile. Maybe as Elvis Costello's first producer or as the writer of "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?"
More than that, and here I must apologize to Mr. Birch, I expected this to be a drier sort of book. A kind of book that I'd be interested in (I read five-volume biographies of 19th-century baseball players for fun) filled with session information, who played what on what. I hoped it might provide insight into Lowe's production techniques and/or songwriting philosophy. There'd be a few rock 'n' roll anecdotes. I expected it to be pretty ordinary.
But there's not anything that's ordinary about this book.
It's bright, intelligent and honest in a chatty way. Birch, who was the drummer and chief songwriter for the Kursaal Flyers and the Records (had I realized this book was written by the co-writer of the glorious "Starry Eyes," I probably still wouldn't have thought it a likely review subject, but would have been more interested) before moving into the production side of record making, is obviously a friend of Lowe's. Birch collaborated with Lowe's longtime creative partner Dave Edmunds in writing "A-1 on the Jukebox," but he manages to socially distance his book from the subject.
This is no doubt made easier by Lowe's understanding that an authorized biography of a rock 'n' roll life would serve no one well. So Birch basically tells the story, then has Lowe comment on what's just gone down.
The result is a sympathetic but eyes-open look at a figure who might have been a little too smart to make it as a full-on pop star (a role that Lowe could never quite take seriously, even when, in the '80s, he seemed to be pursuing it in earnest) but who has demonstrated the ability to grow and mature as an artist even into his 70s. I'm not sure there has ever been a pop musician who has navigated the problem of growing old without succumbing to self-parody as well as Lowe has.
While I've been a fan of Lowe's since his days as house producer for the London-based Stiff label in the mid-'70s, I knew next to nothing about his remarkable upbringing or his RAF pilot father's connection to Jordan's King Hussein. I did know a little about the Brinsley Schwarz hype and how remnants of that band (named after its lead guitarist, who objected) would go on to back Graham Parker as The Rumour while Lowe produced its first record (the remarkable Howlin' Wind).
Lowe also produced a candidate for the U.K.'s first punk single (The Damned's "New Rose"), the first tracks by Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders, Squeeze, Dr Feelgood and Elvis Costello's first five albums. He partnered with Dave Edmunds, guitarist Billy Bremer and drummer Terry Williams in Rockpile, a project that produced only one official band release (1980's Seconds of Pleasure) but could be thought of as being responsible for Edmunds' albums Tracks on Wax 4 (1978) and Repeat When Necessary (1979), Lowe's Jesus of Cool (1978) and Labour of Lust (1979) as well as Carlene Carter's 1980 album Musical Shapes. (Carter, the daughter of June Carter and country singer Carl Smith, was married to Lowe at the time. Footage of their wedding made it into the video for Lowe's single "Cruel to Be Kind.")
But Rockpile fell apart soon after the release of Seconds of Pleasure and Lowe settled into a career as a cult figure/producer/songwriter. He was — with Ry Cooder, John Hiatt and Jim Keltner — part of short-lived supergroup Little Village. He apparently has a higher profile here in the States than he does back home (or maybe the English just don't make as much fuss).
The warts-and-all portrait of Lowe that emerges is not all that warty; he is apparently a nice enough man who went through periods where he drank too much and acted like a rock star because he could. In his 50s, he settled into a rewarding career as a terrific nightclub crooner, revealing himself to be an extraordinary vocalist.
Birch's book makes me wish I'd said something to him when he passed me on a street in Denver a few years ago — though without the benefit of the book I don't know what I'd have said other than I have always loved your work.
Maybe that would have been enough, but Birch's key insight here is that while Lowe has always adopted a cynical approach to what he understands as disposable music aimed at a fickle demographic, he's far more earnest than the star-making machinery stoking the popular song. Birch believes Nick Lowe cares. And he convinced me.
Email:
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
Style on 05/24/2020