So, to start out 2017, I thought I'd go back to 1988. It was the year that Molly turned four, Emily turned two, and Casey was born. And I have vivid memories of Molly and Emily running in circles around the round glass table in the living room as they were listening to "Half A Boy and Half A Man" by Nick Lowe blast in the room. I mean, not that we didn't listen to Raffi and such, but sometimes some good old rock and roll was better.
Nick Lowe is now a 67 year old English crooner. But back in the 1970s and 1980s, Nick Lowe was a fabulous English rocker. He played with Dave Edmunds in the shortlived group Rockpile, and he put out a number of great rock and roll albums himself, starting with Jesus of Cool in 1978, and, in my view, peaking with Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit in 1984 and The Rose of England in 1985.
Nick Lowe is not all that well known these days. But he was married to Carlene Carter (who will absolutely be featured in this blog one day and who is the daughter of June Carter Cash), and Johnny Cash recorded some Nick Lowe songs. He produced several of Elvis Costello's albums. Wilco has covered a Nick Lowe song, and Jeff Tweedy has called Nick "our hero." And a tribute album, called Lowe Country: The Songs of Nick Lowe, was released in 2012.
These days, Nick's albums tend to be considerably mellower than they were back in the day. They're still good, though. And, although I've never seen Nick Lowe in concert, if he comes to town, I'll be there.
So, for song 26, let's do two versions of the song that the girls used to "dance" to back in the 1980s: Half A Boy and Half A Man. Here's a music video version from the 1980s (when Nick played the electric bass guitar), and here's a older Nick Lowe doing the song in 2015.