About Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain Lowe is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in pub rock, power pop and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with being a vocalist, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica.
He is best known for the songs "Cruel to Be Kind" and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" , as well as his production work with Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and others. Lowe also wrote " Peace, Love, and Understanding", a hit for Costello and "I Knew the Bride ", a hit for Rockpile bandmate Dave Edmunds.
Lowe attended the independent Woodbridge School in Suffolk. He began his musical career in 1967, when he joined the band Kippington Lodge, along with his school friend Brinsley Schwarz. They released a few singles on the Parlophone record label as Kippington Lodge before they renamed the band Brinsley Schwarz in late 1969 and began performing country and blues-rock. The band were launched by their management company Famepushers Ltd with an appearance at New York's Fillmore East; a planeload of British journalists were flown over by Famepushers to witness the event, but the stunt backfired and Brinsley Schwarz became a laughing stock until they established credibility on the London pub rock circuit. Lowe wrote some of his best-known compositions while a member of the band, including " Peace, Love, and Understanding", a hit for Elvis Costello in 1979; and "Cruel to Be Kind", also in 1979, Lowe's single and biggest worldwide hit, co-written with bandmate Ian Gomm.
After leaving Brinsley Schwarz in 1975 Lowe began playing bass 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 an in-house producer. The single and the label were initially funded by a loan of £400 from Dr. Feelgood's Lee Brilleaux. 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. Lowe continued producing albums on Stiff and other labels, including The Damned’s first album. In 1977 he produced Dr. Feelgood's album, Be Seeing You, which included "That's It, I Quit", written by Lowe. Private Practice, issued the next year, included "Milk and Alcohol", written by Lowe and Gypie Mayo. This song and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" are the only Lowe compositions to reach the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart.
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, 1980's Seconds of Pleasure, which was not released until the waning days of the collaboration. Seconds of Pleasure featured the Lowe songs "When I Write the Book" and "Heart". However, two of the pair's most significant solo albums from the period, Lowe's Labour of Lust and Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary, were effectively Rockpile albums, as was Carlene Carter's Lowe-produced Musical Shapes album. Lowe's album Labour of Lust received a gold certification in Canada in November 1979.
Lowe was quoted as saying that he had "escaped from the tyranny of the snare drum" in No Depression, when explaining his move away from regular pop music that would get played on mainstream radio.
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