It's kind of crazy that I'm posting not just the first but the second BBC concert featuring Lowe and Carrack, because they never released and album together. But Lowe had been in Rockpile from 1977 to 1981, and shared the lead vocals duties with Dave Edmunds. After that band broke up, he kept the same basic formula going, but shared lead vocals duties with Paul Carrack instead, from 1982 to 1985.
At the time of this concert, Lowe was more prolific than Carrack. Lowe released solo albums in 1982, 1983, and 1984, with the most recent one being titled "Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit." Only two songs were from that album: "Half a Boy and Half a Man" and "Maureen." Carrack's most recent solo album at the time had come out in 1982. But Carrack had been involved with more hits. He sang lead vocals on "Tempted" by Squeeze in 1981, which is probably their most popular song. And back in 1974, he wrote and sang "How Long" by the band Ace, which reached Number One in one U.S. singles chart.
This album is unreleased. Most of it sounds excellent. However, three songs are from a different source and don't sound as good: "Soul Cruisin'," "Switchboard Susan," and "How Long." I suspect what happened was the concert was significantly longer, but the BBC edited it down to fit an hour long time slot. But there were different edited versions, for instance this was also broadcast by the Westwood Radio One network in the U.S., so some of the other versions had different songs on it.
I tried my best to improve the three poorer sounding songs with some audio editing tricks, but I could only do so much. I also boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments on most of the songs, since they seemed a bit low in the mix.
By the way, around 1982, the Lowe and Carrack band was called "Noise to Go." But by the time of this concert, the name was changed to "Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit" (just like the title of his 1984 album), even though the personnel was basically the same. Carrack left in 1985 to become to lead singer for the Genesis side project band Mike + the Mechanics.
This album is one hour long.
01 Soul Cruisin' (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
02 Saint Beneath the Paint (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
03 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
04 Tempted (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
05 Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
06 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
07 Switchboard Susan (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
08 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
09 Don't Give My Heart a Break (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
10 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
11 Is It You (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
12 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
13 Maureen (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
14 Little by Little (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
15 Raging Eyes (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
16 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
17 Half a Boy and Half a Man (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
18 talk (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
19 Love in Vain (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
20 Marie Provost (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
21 Crackin' Up (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
22 I Need You (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
23 How Long (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
24 Burning (Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack)
These Lowe and Carrack concerts seem to have been mostly forgotten on the Internet, because I could barely find any photos of them. I did find a couple of videos of them playing together in the early 1980s though. So I took screenshots of that to make the cover. They always were on different parts of the stage, so I had to put two screenshots together.
Thanks so much for this one!
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