It is not hyperbole to declare Nils Lofgren one of contemporary rock’s greatest collaborators. His long-term connection with Neil Young dates back to 1970’s After The Gold Rush, through Trans and last year’s Crazy Horse reunion shows, an extended stint that overlaps the multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/songwriter ‘s membership in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1984. Such protracted creative stints laid the foundation for Lofgren’s songwriting with the late Lou Reed, begun in the late Seventies and now continued on Blue With Lou, where new originals of Nils’ sound of a piece with the fruits of the composing partnership with the linchpin of the Velvet Underground.
Not surprisingly, exhuming five pieces of material that lay dormant for some four decades acted as a catalyst for this first studio release of Nils’ in eight years. Recorded live at his home studio in Arizona, the performances, with precious few exceptions, radiate the natural ease of his best records, namely the eponymous debut (a/k/a ‘The Fat Man Album’)and Wonderland. Lofgren’s carefree wordless singing on “Attitude City” is the first tip-off to his enthusiasm, but more to the point is the instrumental drive behind “Give,” where drummer Andy Newark and bassist Kevin McCormick are locked in with Lofgren as he wields the electric guitar with familiar panache.
An ode to charity, the latter tune’s sentiment becomes sublimated to Lofgren’s immediately recognizable fretboard work as well as Cindy Mizelle vocals that extend this cut (actually the least intrusive of such background singing on the album). Only the seven-minute-plus title track exceeds that track’s duration, within which a more straightforward and honest sentiment rises to the surface. Reed and Lofgren formulated a somewhat stiff transformation of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” into “Talk Thru The Tears,” the rendering here regrettably bereft of the irony Reed mastered early in his career. But then Nils’ expression of his own vulnerability, exemplified by “Pretty Soon,” has long been his own strong point and remains so here.
The aforementioned silent film icon and tunesmith gets a name check in another co-authoring, “City Lights,” where Branford Marsalis sax lines curl up and around the vocals in a most tantalizing fashion. An even more effective contrast arrives in the form of “Rock Or Not,” where the musicians move as if carried by their own momentum, just one instance on Blue With Lou where the spontaneity of the sessions becomes self-evident; the self-conscious title hardly slows the ensemble down and their musicianship also lends ballast to “Don’t Let Your Guard Down,” furthering its defensive posture. On “Too Blue to Play,” the blend of acoustic guitars and piano correctly pinpoint a solitary emotion unfortunately undermined by some arch background singing. But the prominence of grand piano on “Cut Him Up” more effectively validates Lofgren’s decision to co-produce this project with his spouse, particularly as the sound of the ivories plays off his cutting electric guitar in such clear relief. The syncopated six-string figures Nils plays during his homage to the late Tom Petty, “Dear Heartbreaker,” extends the continuity within this twelve-track sequencing.
As such, a less-cluttered and more intimate take on “Remember You” might well have increased its potency as the closing cut. Nevertheless, the ‘less is more’ premise remains in effect just often enough on Blue For Lou to certify the record, name associations aside, as a memorable entry in the lengthy discography of Nils Lofgren.
Photo: Carl Schultz
