Nils Lofgren - Damaged Goods

Glorious Goods

Guitar god, hired gun, axeman - of the three I suspect the first label wouldn't trip off most tongues, but it would mine. Seen perhaps mostly as Springsteen sideman, that would not do justice to the distinctive guitar style upon which Lofgren has built his musical career. His songwriting may not top popular charts, but it is consistently good, and his voice is another distinctive feature if an acquired taste. It is always the guitar that excels. Lofgren rarely rips it up, and it is the control of dancing across harmonics and taming feedback for its glorious releases that delights constantly.

Just wanted to say this as I listen to this tenth studio album from 1995. As I write, the guitar is being reined in and out on Here For You - not the strongest song, but as ever enhanced by the guitar playing - and the earlier track Only Five Minutes is a fine one with complementary soprano saxophone by Branford Marsalis. This album does contain the great Lofgren song Black Books, always a live favourite.

Nils Lofgren - 2 Meter Sessions [Kink FM Amsterdam 2008]

Nils Not Neil

This is an outstanding live broadcast [bootleg] of Nils talking about and singing some songs from his album of that same year The Loner - Nils Sings Neil. There is nothing better than such a solo set: Nils with guitar and piano and vocal - though I'm sure many would claim, obviously, to 'better' that if it was Neil himself, and there are plenty of such solo recordings out there to achieve this. But that's the point. Nils Lofgren pays here a reverential yet never gushing tribute to Neil Young, and the talks between tracks give interesting insights into Lofgren's youthful work with Young on After The Goldrush as well as his admiration for Young as songwriter, especially his early work in Buffalo Springfield. And Nils Lofgren is a brilliant performer, so this collection is simply a winner in so many ways. Easy to find and download. Tracks are:

Wonderin'
Long May You Run
Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
I Am A Child
Don't Cry No Tears
Birds

My favourite anecdote is Lofgren telling us that whilst he played piano on most After The Goldrush tracks, Young played the piano on Birds, but Young gave the credit for all of the piano work to Nils in the album notes, a generosity Lofgren likes to acknowledge but also put right. And this is the one number on this radio studio performance where he plays piano!

Nils Lofgren - Old School

Shut And Open Case

Old School is an interesting title for this album. After listening I think it is musically more declaration than realisation as rock is rock and Nils Lofgren writes and performs here the guitar driven and balladic rock songs he has for years, and which others - in their own ways but within its conventions - have in the past but also today and no doubt forever. It is timeless, not age-related.

The title’s sentiment is therefore more in the song’s lyrical preoccupations. On this album Lofgren is in a reflective, meditative mood. Aged 60, he isn’t quite standing on that final hill to look back upon a life and musical career, but he is reminiscing about aspects of this, and death too, the latter informed by the realities and consequences of getting older – where family and friends increasingly encounter this loss – and the specific memories of fellow E Street Band players, keyboardist Danni Federici and saxophonist Clarence Clemons. This is the focus of track Miss You Ray, written for Ray Charles, but in recent interviews Lofgren has observed that since the death of Clemons he does think of the Big Man as well as reference him when performing this song live. It is a beautiful ballad, echoes of Springsteen in its descending vocal line.

Opening track Old School, with guest accompanying vocalist Lou Gramm from Foreigner, is the album’s outright rocker and is a rousing one at that, Lofgren’s slide guitar making its own declaration that here is one of rock’s greatest practitioners. The song with a title that should make the most strident claim 60 Is The New 18, is for me the weakest musically though there is wit in its take on those trying too hard to hang on to their imagined youthfulness. Love Stumbles On presents a wry and wise observation on resilience, and it’s hopeful in its contemplation. Amy Joan Blues presents another quest vocalist, this time long-standing friend Paul Rodgers, and is a jaunty barroom blues number. Nothing ‘old school’ in the recording of this: Lofgren has commented on how the vocals were transferred digitally, he and Rodgers collaborating over the internet! This is followed by the beautiful Irish ballad Irish Angel written by Bruce McCabe and highlights Lofgren’s gentle vocal. Ain’t Too Many of Us introduces the third guest vocalist, and this time a face-to-face recording with the great Sam Moore – it is another strong song reflecting on past achievements but also loss, with snatches of Lofgren’s guitar harmonics within the sublime solo, his signature excellence. When You Were Mine is another sweet and emotive ballad, the personal storytelling ringing true and again thoughtfully reflective about friendship surviving. Perhaps the ‘old school’ here is in the strength of age that values what has gone before and which is translated with such empathy in the songwriting. Just Because You Love Me is the most obvious Springsteen-influenced tune on the album, and eleventh track Dream Big is Lofgren taking the privilege of his age to extol the virtues of being bold but humble in doing your best: dream big, work hard, stay humble – give big, stay strong, be humble, humble, humble. Perhaps this is the album’s touchstone moral, and I’ll trust and listen, but with two and a bit years to my own sixtieth I perhaps have an inkling.

The album’s closing two songs are both slow and soothing. Penultimate Let Her Get Away is another song reflecting on regret and acceptance with Lofgren in fine maturing voice. Closer Why Me is carried by a scorching guitar throughout, the harmonics-wail symbolising Lofgren’s defiance and strength, both as writer and performer in this paused but not final stand, and as he declares in typically earnest cliche, when one door shuts another opens wide.

Nils Lofgren - Flip

Flipside Of The Awful Eighties

Right smack centre in the musically awful 80s and I discovered Nils Lofgren with my cassette copy of his superb album Flip. I’d known of him like many as guitarist in the E Street Band but wasn’t really aware of his independent career, though I’ve collected  most of his Grin and solo work on vinyl since then. I was also unaware at the time of his 17 year old cameo on Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush and involvement a little latter on Tonight’s The Night. And this only scratches the surface of his involvement with other bands,  musicians and live performances, individual and communal.

Lofgren’s vocal is light and an acquired taste, but I acquired a love for it long ago and think this aspect of his work is underrated. The same could be said for his guitar playing: those who know his work will surely not have this problem, but he doesn’t appear to be more widely and generally acknowledged as one of the greats. I’m not sure I have the most accurate description of his style, but the signature sound is the way he plays and uses the guitar’s harmonics, and the feedback he rides off this. Not surprisingly, Lofgren sites Hendrix as an influence, but the feedback aspect is different to Jimi’s. Another stated and perhaps bigger influence is Roy Buchanan. Truly awesome examples of this can be seen and heard in Lofgren’s mid 70s performances with Grin on the Old Grey Whistle Test [on YouTube]. Check out Back It Up, Cry Tough, but especially his brilliant Keith Don’t Go where near the end of his lengthy solo you get an excellent example of his finger-picking those harmonics - then Lofgren self-duets with electric piano and guitar, ever keen to showcase his virtuosity. There’s also a 1981 OGWT of him playing Night Fades Away and this take us towards the time when Flip was released in 1985.

Ignoring the irony of my raving about anything from the 80s, Flip is a bright and energetic album, even the decade-delighting in synth-sounds, which feature throughout, unable to spoil my enjoyment in this – cue opening to Secrets in the Streets with its anthematic chorus, strident drum beats, harmony vocals and harmonics-tinged guitar combining to bring a kudos to that synthesiser wash. Delivery Night is, for me, more typically Lofgren as songwriter and performer with its gentle vocal delivery and narrative core – hints of 50s/60s rock’n’roll balladry [sha-la-la baby] echoing throughout along with that distinctive guitar.

King of the Rock is in many ways archetypal eighties fare, but the guitar drives this too with an authority salvaging it from my aural rejection: Lofgren’s rock-roots triumphing in controlled feedback and echo in an elongated solo ending. Peach track on the whole album and in my all-time list of greats is Sweet Midnight, guitar wail railing against the 80s drum beat at its beginning. Vocal echoing runs through this track too, but the guitar is always on the top driving towards the false funky end of screeching, hisses and yelps – until it slices back in victory. New Holes in Old Shoes is an acoustic, harp and blues tune that steps outside the time frame to remind us of Lofgren’s musical roots, electric solo again at the end dancing with the harmonica.

The album ends on two classic Lofgren songs, Dreams Die Hard and Big Tears Fall, the former a love lament and the latter a beautiful if slightly lachrymose ballad. BTF foregrounds the gentle vocal that is distinctly Lofgren, and the sweet saccharine of the lyrics is a genuine reflection of his earnest honesty and innocence as man and performer.

I had the pleasure of seeing Nils Lofgren play an acoustic set at a small venue in Plymouth. Bliss.