Jez Lowe

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THIS ENTRY IS MOST DEFINITELY "WORK IN PROGRESS". WHEN IT'S FINISHED IT WILL GO TO PEER REVIEW, SO IF THERE ARE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT, HANG ON UNTIL THEN.



Jez Lowe is one of the great British singer-songwriters, yet he is nowhere near as widely-known as he should be. It would be very wrong, however, to call him an unsung hero. His songs have been recorded by hundreds of performers all over the world, many of them household names. Nor is he by any means an unknown in his own right. He has an enthusiastic following, not only in Britain, but also in the USA, Canada, Australia and mainland Europe. He is co-founder of the USA-based record label Tantobie, has written and presented a BBC radio series, and he tours and performs almost continually. His work and his life are intertwined enough to make a brief musical biography helpful.


BRIEF OVERSIMPLIFIED MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY


Jez Lowe was born in 1955 and spent his youth in the mining town of Easington, County Durham. His family background is Irish; his father and most of the people he grew up with were coal miners in the local pits. He absorbed the deeply-rooted culture of the area, its politics and traditions, and of course the characteristic rhythms and cadences of its speech.



His first musical influence was the pop music of the day, but he moved from the Beatles via Bob Dylan to the folk music which was then enjoying a revival. Folk music in general led to local folk music in particular - the North East of England is a crossroads of influences, with Scotland, Scandinavia and the local industrial traditions all playing a part.



Eventually he began to perform, first traditional songs and eventually his own material. By the mid-seventies he was a regular at the local clubs as half of a duo called Hendon Banks, the other half being old friend Ged Foley. When Ged joined the Battlefield Band, Jez carried on either solo or with hurdy-gurdy player Jake Walton. He was recording by now, on the Fellside label, and he was writing more and more.



In March 1984 the miners' strike began. When it ended a year later, Jez's home area had been changed forever, a generation of his family and friends had been betrayed, and a way of life began to die. How could Jez not be affected? His anger at the destruction inflicted by the government went into his music, and was transformed there into deeply-felt songs which are all the more powerful for their oblique view and understatement.



In 1990 he formed the band The Bad Pennies, a varying lineup which now performs with him at about half his gigs and plays on his recordings. At time of writing, Jez continues to tour, spreading his music slowly but surely to a wider audience. And of course he continues to write.


IN PERFORMANCE


Jez accompanies himself when playing solo on guitar, bouzouki or mandolin, with occasional harmonica. His style varies from hard and driving to delicate and intricate, and he uses a rich variety of tunings. His accompaniments are interesting enough that some of them could almost stand alone without the words, and guitarists will find them endlessly challenging. At first hearing they sound simple enough to replicate without too much trouble; in fact, they are far from simple, and it is only his skill that allows them to flow with such apparent effortlessness. The art that conceals art, in fact.



He sings in a strong tenor voice which is not just musically pleasing but also an ideal vehicle for the text - every syllable is clearly articulated. His accent is never an obstacle, and sometimes a bonus.


THE SONGS


It will only be possible here to give a glimpse of Jez Lowe's wide range in his many songs. His themes vary from the raw anger of These Coal Town Days with its refrain "Howay man, they're liars and they're cheats" to a ghost story (The Military Road), animal rights (Aloysius), broad humour (High Part of the Town) and of course every shade of human relationship. Pretty well the only thing he doesn't go in for thematically is the obscure, maundering navel-gazing that too many writers pass off as profundity. His private life is rightly just that - private - and though some of the songs seem to refer to it, it is always used as a starting point rather than a destination.



His melodies are very good, and work their way into your consciousness so thoroughly that you will find yourself humming them for days afterwards. They seem to have an almost organic connection to the words, they fit so well together. Without getting boringly technical there is really no way to talk about them here - you will just have to listen to some.



One major characteristic of his writing is his ability to see, and write, from other points of view. His take on how women can see men is particularly clear and unsentimental, as here:



My hopes have grown slim as you've fattened,

On six pints a night, 'til your dole-money's gone,

Then you weep drunkard's tears all over my hand,

Sometimes call me a cow, then you think I'm your mam... (Greek Lightning)

or here:



I cheer him up in his frustration,

He breaks my heart with just a word.

I tell him all I have to offer,

He mostly acts like he's not heard. (Weave and Worry)

Another feature is his trick of taking a stock phrase or cliché and turning it round. For example, the man who meets a woman while they are both waiting to see the doctor:



I was in the waiting room by an ankle twist of fate (Maddison)

Or the man who wishes for part of his past back:



If I only knew now all the things that I knew then (Glad Rags Again)

Or children playing hopscotch:



Sometimes I think this street is hopping mad (The Soda Man)

Or an ageing Teddy Boy:



He's fifty-two, but it's still fifty-six in his head (Kid Canute)

Like all writers, he will return to a major theme more than once. However, he can and does treat his themes in very different ways. As an illustration of this variety, let's have a look at the treatment of the anti-war theme in four songs: Chick Henderson's March, Old Bones, Japs and English and Vikings. The first is a rather jolly, end-of-the-pier treatment reminiscent of Oh What A Lovely War, deriving its poignancy from a soldier's jaunty optimism as he marches off to probable death in the trenches:



They say we're in for wind and weather, but it won't be long 'til our feet are dry...
Old Bones is far more angry, attacking the way that unemployed young men are often directed into the army as a career when they would be far better off in the jobs that have now been lost:



You talk of the many owing much to few when all that I wanted was a job to do...

It also addresses the bitterness that is the only possible response to the statistic-spouting politician justifying yet another cut:



Your facts and your figures are the likes of me, so don't try and tell me how my life should be
Japs and English is a subtle song which lists a series of wars and conflicts in such a way that we are not quite sure whether we are hearing about the real thing, or a memory of children's games. It suggests that some mental habits learnt in childhood tend to carry over into adult life:



We always fought as English, as English we were known,

But we never fought in England but in lands that weren't our own...



..And the child that knows no better is still father to the man

Whose guns are always bigger...

Finally we come to protest by ridicule in Vikings, a funny (!) song about warlike attitudes in general and Iraq in particular. The song suggests that the Vikings have grown tired of Valhalla and returned to Earth because the way we behave now reminds them of their glory days:

We'd find some peaceful quiet village, then

We'd start our beserking, raping, pillaging.

To make the locals hate us was our stratagem

Now that's popular again, so say the Vikings...

The last and perhaps most important general point is that Jez Lowe's writing has changed and developed over the years. If you wish, you can see it as a progression, a line reaching from the early folk-based material through the political and protest songs of the eighties to his current concerns. Or, as such a lot of it is recorded, you can see it as a tonal landscape all laid out before you, waiting for you to explore it. There is a lot to find in all the areas. Some of the early material is indistinguishable from authentic folk song: jaunty Sedgefield Fair for example, or Brockie Lads with its gorgeous melody. This is a very long way indeed from the more sophisticated songs like The Parish Notices, a little masterpiece on destructive small town prejudice, with a jazz-influenced melody accompanied by spare and haunting classical guitar, electric stand-up bass and saxophone.



Not everything works perfectly in all his songs. His genuinely-felt and touching nostalgia can occasionally flirt with sentimentality, and the verb "curse" seems to come up quite a lot. But whatever minor niggles there may be, he is one of the best and most inventive singer-songwriters working today and his work cries out to be more widely heard; there is something here for everyone who has got beyond children's music and the rest of the commercial pap. Buy a CD and listen to it - you will hear something new in it at every playing. Or better still, go to a live gig. Here's how to find one...


MORE INFORMATION


The best source is www.jezlowe.com which has lots of information and pictures, audio samples, CDs and books for sale cheaper than you can get them anywhere else, and best of all a list of all Jez's gigs. Have a look at this for a hint of how amazingly hard the man works - it is unlikely to be very long before he is somewhere near you. Go and see him. If you have ears to hear, they will be opened.

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