{"id":793579,"date":"2019-03-04T09:54:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=802325"},"modified":"2019-03-04T09:54:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:54:44","slug":"nils-lofgren-resurrects-lost-lou-reed-songs-on-new-lp-blue-with-lou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/nils-lofgren-resurrects-lost-lou-reed-songs-on-new-lp-blue-with-lou\/","title":{"rendered":"Nils Lofgren Resurrects Lost Lou Reed Songs On New LP \u2018Blue With Lou\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band were in Australia on the final leg of their River<\/em> tour in early 2017 when guitarist Nils Lofgren<\/a> found himself messing around with a new bluesy riff on his Jazzmaster guitar during a pre-show soundcheck. \u201cI knew I wanted to do something with it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was onstage waiting for Bruce and the band to show up when I just started singing the words \u2018blue with Lou.\u2019 I realized I could turn it into a song paying homage to Lou Reed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song became the title track to Lofgren\u2019s new LP Blue With Lou<\/em> (out April 26th) which contains five songs he wrote with Lou Reed in the late Seventies but have never been released before in any capacity. One of them is \u201cAttitude City,\u201d premiering at Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cI never had the chance to grill Lou specifically about that one,\u201d says Lofgren. \u201cBut to me it\u2019s about how the rich and powerful are taking over the planet and deciding there\u2019s not room to care about anybody else. Power and money have become a mental illness. It has bled into our politics and I\u2019m saying all that in this song.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seeds for Blue With Lou<\/em> were planted in late 1978 when Lofgren teamed up with producer Bob Ezrin to cut his solo LP Nils.<\/em> Lofgren wrote a handful of songs with guitarist Dick Wagner (including the classic \u201cShine Silently\u201d), but he still felt like he needed help with many of the lyrics. At Ezrin\u2019s encouragement, he met up with Reed to see if he\u2019d be interested in taking on the challenge. They first got together at Reed\u2019s apartment and quickly bonded over football. \u201cHe was a big NFL fan, which really surprised me,\u201d says Lofgren. \u201cI grew up in the DC area and was a big Redskins fan. For some strange reason, he loved the Dallas Cowboys, the Number One nemesis of the Redskins. We wound up watching them play each other on a Monday Night Football game that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reed and Lofgren wound up talking long after the Redskins won 9-5 in a nailbiter.<\/a> \u201cI said to him, \u2018I have all this music that I felt strongly about, but I didn\u2019t like the lyrics,’\u201d says Lofgren. \u201cLou said, \u2018I\u2019m the exact opposite. I write lyrics all the time that I think are good, but the music takes a bit more elbow grease.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Lofgren wound up giving him a tape of 13 songs in various stages of gestation. Weeks passed where he didn\u2019t hear a word from him until one night the phone rang at 4:30 am. \u201cIt was pitch dark,\u201d says Lofgren. \u201cAnd the voice said, \u2018Nils, this is Lou Reed. I\u2019ve been up for three days and nights straight. I love your tape. I\u2019ve just completed 13 sets of lyrics I feel great about. If you like, I\u2019ll dictate them to you.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Lofgren jumped out of bed, put a pot of coffee on the stove and began furiously transcribing down the lyrics to every one of his songs. \u201cIt was a bizarre, beautiful thing,\u201d he says. \u201cI spent a good two hours plus going line-by-line and word-by-word. When it was done, I was looking at 13 original songs we\u2019d just co-written together. I was thrilled.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Reed was midway through recording his solo albums Bells<\/em> and he asked if he could use three of the songs (\u201cCity Lights,\u201d \u201cStupid Man,\u201d and \u201cWith You\u201d) for it. Lofgren gladly agreed, and in return he used three other songs (\u201cA Fool Like Me,\u201d \u201cI Found Her,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll Cry Tomorrow\u201d) for Nils.<\/em> In 1995, Lofgren dug into the vault and used their collaborative song \u201cLife\u201d on his album Damaged Goods<\/em> and in 2002 he went back again and picked out \u201cDrifin\u2019 Man\u201d for Breakaway Angel.<\/em><\/p>\n

That still left five songs that never saw the light of day. When Reed died in 2013, Lofgren began thinking that it might be time to let the world hear them. \u201cI always thought in the back of my mind that Lou was going to call one day and be like, \u2018Let\u2019s look at those other songs that we wrote together,’\u201d says Lofgren. \u201cWhen we lost him, I realized that nobody was going to get to hear them until I got it together and did them myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once the E Street Band\u2019s long River<\/em> tour wrapped up in February 2017, he finally had time to put his plan into action with help from bassist Kevin McCormick, drummer Andy Newmark and vocalist Cindy Mizelle, the latter having toured with the E Street Band from 2009 through 2014. They recorded the album live at his home studio in Phoenix, Arizona with Lofgren and his wife Amy serving as co-producers. The band lived at their home during the sessions and spent their days tracking live, keeping overdubs to an absolute minimum, and eating meals prepared by Amy, who has a background as a professional chef.<\/p>\n

About half of the album is devoted to the five unreleased Lofgren\/ Reed tunes (\u201cAttitude City,\u201d \u201cGive,\u201d \u201cTalk Thru the Tears,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Let Your Guard Down,\u201d and \u201cCut Him Up\u201d) along with a new version of \u201cCity Lights.\u201d There are also six Lofgren originals, including a tribute to his late dog Groucho (\u201cRemember You\u201d) and \u201cDear Heartbreaker,\u201d a sad tune about Tom Petty. \u201cAmy and I were huge fans,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t intend to write a song about him. It just came out during the process of putting this record together and I wanted to share it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, Lofgren will take the studio band \u2013 along with his brother and former Grin bandmate Tom Lofgren \u2013 on the road across America<\/a> to promote the album. \u201cIt\u2019s been 15 years since I went out with a band,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t even remember the last time I toured with the same band I just made a record with. Also, my brother is a joy to work with. We don\u2019t get to play together much and we\u2019re excited to share this music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The setlist will focus on songs from Blue With Lou<\/em> along with selections from his long solo career and his days in Grin. The clubs they\u2019re hitting are a fraction of the size of the arenas and stadiums that Lofgren plays on his E Street Band tours, but he likes it that way. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in those big stadiums it\u2019s just a big spectacle,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first row might be 50 yards away. In the clubs, you walk out and 300 or so people are almost on top of you. They\u2019re on your sides. They\u2019re all over. The only place to go for safety is to get in the music and get out of your own mind. You have to let your musical spirit just go. It\u2019s an emotional hit like nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band were in Australia on the final leg of their River tour in early 2017 when guitarist Nils Lofgren found himself messing around with a new bluesy riff on his Jazzmaster guitar during a pre-show soundcheck. \u201cI knew I wanted to do something with it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 23:10:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}