A Lowe profile

Nick Lowe's musical career has been long and fruitful and has spanned many genres, including American roots music, country, soul and r'n'b. Photo / Supplied DeLaunay Enterprises

Nick Lowe - once a fellow traveller with Elvis Costello (who turned Lowe's What's So Funny 'bout Peace Love and Understanding into a punk-era hit) and the self-styled Jesus of Cool (the title of Lowe's '78 debut album) - is talking about, of all things, aliens.

"There seems to be this period between 1952 and 1966 when a bunch of them came down to America, made this unbelievable music and then cleared off.

"There now seems no sign these people were here at all except for a few busted old amps, some broken guitars in junk stores and a few studios where they recorded.

"I keep thinking I should have heard everything by now - I'm supposed to be something of an expert, but there seems to be a bottomless well of this stuff."

For a Londoner, Lowe - droll, at 60 a new father, and coming to New Zealand with his longtime friend Ry Cooder - has had a long passion for American roots music, country, soul and r'n'b.

He's also a self-effacing raconteur and deals amusingly with his life in pre-punk bands like Brinsley Swartz which had a reputation for great songs and heroic drinking.

Yet despite producing the first three Elvis Costello albums, the success of Jesus of Cool (retitled Pure Pop for Now People in the more sensitive American market), being in the dream team with Cooder and drummer Jim Keltner on the exceptional John Hiatt album Bring the Family in '87, and having delivered a quartet of remarkable country-soul albums over the past 15 years, Lowe remains below the scanners of wide recognition.

The long career of this former son-in-law of Johnny Cash has been remarkable for its consistency and opportunities lost: with Brinsley Schwarz he wrote country-rock with a British skew, although the band blew their high-profile career launch at the Fillmore East and journalists flown in couldn't find a decent word to say.

Lowe later teamed up with guitarist Dave Edmunds in the much acclaimed Rockpile (critical respect, blistering live shows, record buyer indifference) and then started a solo career.

His Jesus of Cool debut - which skids stylistically from cynicism (Music for Money) to a Bowie pastiche (I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass) and dark humour (Marie Provost) - was his breakthrough, although listening to the expanded reissue last year was hard work.

"I could hear the charm in it, but as a songwriter I was thinking, 'if I'd only taken a little more time and not rushed'. I could hear a kid in a hurry."

He drank too much, was dismissive of songwriting, quit record production in the 80s when computers and drum machines arrived ("the fun went out of it") and he has often talked down his skills. ]

In '82 he told Melody Maker, "I could go into the studio with a vole and make a good record, if I liked the cut of its jib."

Vital albums with Costello, Dr Feelgood, the Damned and others suggest he was actually very astute. He says it's about finding where the power lies - and it might be the sulky bass player not the flash lead singer.

Quick recording always appealed to Lowe: Bring the Family with Hiatt was done in four days "and was a really good record because of time constraints".

"In fact when we decided to do a project later as Little Village, one of the reasons that didn't work artistically was because Warner Brothers gave us as much studio time as we wanted, so we just fiddled around. It was a bit bitsy and poncy."

Lowe's longtime love of American music, albeit with British humour and irony in his lyrics, has led to a string of acclaimed albums starting with 95's The Impossible Bird which featured The Beast in Me, a song Johnny Cash covered. Someone he might have been tempted to produce?

"No, I never thought I could bring anything to him. I was such a fan. I did record with him a couple of times but I was just in the room. I was too in awe."

His recent material has a lyrical darkness despite the effortless melodies which bring to mind Sam Cooke or Charlie Rich. And sometimes that's a problem, as on I Trained Her to Love Me which, despite the title, contains some deep self-loathing behind the braggadocio.

"I plea the Randy Newman defence, 'it's not me it's a character talking'. But of course there's a certain element of what you have observed, or have been guilty of yourself.

"I first played it on one of my solo tours and it divided people: one side were hissing feminists and the other were air-punching guys yelling, 'Way to go, maaan'.

"Talk about them all missing the point."

LOWDOWN
Who: English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe. With Ry Cooder and Joachim Cooder.
When: Monday November 16, Civic Theatre, Auckland
Selected Albums: Jesus of Cool (1978, reissued 2008); Labour of Lust (79); The Impossible Bird (94); Dig My Mood (98); The Convincer (2001); At My Age (07)