Nils Lofgren - Cry Tough

Nils Lofgren would first come to the attention of the rock 'n' roll world when he was offered a position with Neil Young's band as a guitarist and keyboard player at the tender age of 17 years. Playing and touring in Young's band with the members of Crazy Horse, Lofgren would appear on Young's After The Goldrush and Tonight's The Night albums, and would also record with Crazy Horse for their solo debut. During this same time period, circa 1969-1973, Lofgren also fronted his own band in Grin, recording four albums before breaking up the band and launching his solo career in 1974.

While Nils Lofgren's self-titled 1975 solo debut would become the stuff of legend, sending the guitarist and songwriter's career into the stratosphere, Lofgren's second effort, 1976's Cry Tough, stands tall as an accomplished work in its own right. Partially produced by rock 'n' roll wunderkind Al Kooper – no slouch in the musical genius department himself – and Neil Young cohort David Briggs, Lofgren was backed by his brother and former Grin bandmate Tom, and a band of session pros, including drummers Jim Gordon and Aynsley Dunbar and bassists Paul Stallworth, Wornell Jones, and Chuck Rainey. As such, Cry Tough would serve as a fine follow-up to the guitarist's debut.

The album-opening title track would become one of Lofgren's long-time fan favorites. The fretwork on "Cry Tough" is wiry and just a little dirty, with a bit of blues falling in between the lines, and Kooper smartly segregates Lofgren's best solo to a spotlight of its own. The song's lyrical rock 'n' aesthetic didn't hurt, either, and it would become a live staple of Lofgren's performances for years.

Although Briggs would often feature Lofgren's guitar high in the mix, Kooper would make the best use of Lofgren's guitar hero status and six-string acumen. Take, for instance, the mostly mid-tempo, near-ballad "It's Not A Crime"…although Lofgren's vocals struggle at times to be heard above the mix, and the song's lush orchestration and backing vocals threaten to bury the frontman altogether, Kooper amps it up for Lofgren's roof-raising solos, which provide the song with an athlete's heartbeat.

On the other hand, the Briggs-produced "Incidentally…It's Over" is one of Lofgren's best tunes in a catalog deep with such, a taut guitar showcase with Lofgren's ever-present fretwork threaded throughout, but with plenty of room left for a couple of scorched-earth solos, a fine vocal performance, and real piss-off lyrics. Kooper has Lofgren try his hand at the old Yardbirds' gem "For Your Love," the early-60s blues-rock number transformed into a galloping rock 'n' roll leviathan with bluesy vocals, rapidfire drumbeats, steely bass lines, and a display of six-string proficiency that would light the sky like the fourth of July. Lofgren's solos are all over the place, from psychedelic squiggles to fierce, semi-metallic razorblades cutting straight through the mix.

Lofgren follows the inspired performance of "For Your Love" with the equally devastating "Share A Little." A muscular rocker with blistering, molten fretwork and staggered, syncopated rhythms, Wornell Jones' bass provides a foundation on which Lofgren goes nuts with his flamethrower solos. The song includes backing vocals from his former Crazy Horse bandmates Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot. With only sparse accompaniment…just Scott Ball's spry upright bass lines and Holden Raphael's fast-paced percussion…Lofgren's "Mud In Your Eye" is a departure, the song depending mostly on his lively vocals and a bit of acoustic guitar strum and piano. Lyrically clever, its words delivered with no little spite, it's an odd little romantic passion-play and quite entertaining.

Another bittersweet romantic rocker, "You Lit A Fire" is complimented by Kooper's thick orchestral arrangement and Lofgren's inventive, fluid guitarplay, which sounds a lot like he'd been listening to a little Ernie Isley at the time. Lofgren's vocals are fine, and the slightly-funky backbeat provided by the Rainey/Gordon rhythm section could have easily played into the strengths of AM radio circa 1976, sliding in right beside the Isley Brothers on the charts. Cry Tough closes with a funky rocker, "Jailbait" a story of illicit love delivered amidst a flurry of rampaging rhythms and a fat rhythmic groove, Lofgren's guitar taking on a Southern rock feel similar to what Kooper accomplished with Gary Rossington a year earlier on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Nothin' Fancy album.

Cry Tough would become the best-selling album of Lofgren's solo career, rising as high as #32 on the Billboard charts and ensuring the guitarist the opportunity to follow up with albums like 1978's I Came To Dance, 1979's Nils, and the acclaimed 1983 set Wonderland. Lofgren would put his solo aspirations on hold for a decade when he joined Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band in 1984, and although he has released only a handful of well-received studio albums in the years since, Lofgren has kept the fires burning for his beloved early material through archival releases and a string of live albums. Cry Tough is the album that cemented Lofgren's musical reputation, however, and it sounds as electric and vital today as it did in 1976. (Hip-O Select Records)

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Nils Lofgren - Wonderland CD review
Nils Lofgren - Back It Up!! Live... CD review

(Click on the CD cover to buy Cry Tough from Amazon.com)

Grin featuring Nils Lofgren - Gone Crazy

After touring with Neil Young while still a teenager, singer, songwriter, and guitar hero Nils Lofgren formed the band Grin in 1969 with bassist Bob Gordon and drummer Bob Berberich. While his credentials as part of Young's entourage certainly attracted a few people to the band's early shows, Grin rapidly built a fervent audience of its own in the Washington D.C./northern Virginia area based entirely on the band's dynamic performances and Lofgren's six-string pyrotechnics.

Lofgren further parlayed his connection with Young into a record deal for Grin, and the band released its self-titled debut in 1971. Grin's sound was simple, no-frills, guitar-driven rock 'n' roll with pop overtones and catchy melodies. Although the debut album didn't set the world on fire with sales, it did well enough to merit a follow-up, and in '72 the band released 1+1. The album's lone single release, a clever slice of power-pop called "White Lies," would become a minor hit on AOR radio, rising as high as #75 on the Billboard magazine pop chart and propel the album onto the bottom end of the Billboard Top 200 album chart.

To help flush out the band's sound, Lofgren added his brother as a second guitarist after the second album, Tom Lofgren playing rhythm behind Nils' scorching leads. In 1973, the band released All Out, another fine collection of songs that rose almost as high as 1+1 on the charts, but yielded no singles, hit or otherwise. Disappointed by the band's lack of forward commercial momentum, CBS dropped Grin, who would quickly be picked up by A&M Records.

Gone Crazy would be the result, Grin's fourth and final album released in 1973 and sadly suffering a fate similar to its predecessors. Many consider Gone Crazy to be Grin's weakest album, but I'd disagree – the band's four-album milieu is uniformly and consistently enjoyable. Grin's infectious pop/rock sound was a welcome digression during the hard rock early-70s, and if Lofgren and crew could easily bang it out with the heaviest of their contemporaries, they also possessed an elfin charm and whimsical nature that sets their music apart from much of the decade's better-known bands.

Gone Crazy opens with a fierce rocker, "You're The Weight" offering up a concrete-hard guitar-bass-drum riff on top of which Lofgren lays down his potent vocals and measured wildcat solos. The song is as infectious as anything Grin had done previously and, in many ways, foreshadows Lofgren's soon-to-come solo debut album. The band slows it down a bit for the mid-tempo ballad "Boy + Girl," which features as much of Lofgren's keyboard skills as it does guitar. With trilling piano play that sounds like an old-timey, Western saloon soundtrack, Lofgren tries on his best blue-eyed soul shoes, the song engaging and hiding just a bit of nasty funk beneath the grooves.

"What About Me" returns the band to solid rock territory, Lofgren's wiry fretwork running like an electrical charge across the song's exotic instrumentation. While Lofgren's vocals here are a little more strained, they fit the chaotic feel of "What About Me," with the rest of the band throwing in their own shouted harmonies. Lofgren delivers a scorching solo at just past the two-minute mark, short and shocking and simply devastating while his grinning (sorry!) band members knock out the wild-n-wooly rhythms behind him.

"True Thrill" is a bouncy, pop-influenced tune with a slippery rhythmic arrangement, Nils' trademark guitarplay, a little vocal harmony, and some very fine basswork by Gordon. With a little label push in the right direction – perhaps a judiciously-placed $100 bill in the sleeve for a few station programmers – and the song could have been a hit on both AM and FM radio. By contrast, "Beggar's Day" (Eulogy to Danny Whitten)" is a blistering rocker and strictly FM radio fare. Written for his fallen Young bandmate Whitten, it is lyrically one of the best songs Lofgren has written, with powerful instrumental backing, passionate vocals, and some of Lofgren's nastiest guitar solos.

The gentle ballad "Believe" is the closest that Gone Crazy comes to a clunker, the piano-heavy tune relying too much, perhaps, on Lofgren's still-maturing keyboard skills and too little on his six-string mastery. Lofgren's vocals are slight, sometimes too sweet, and the band harmonies are simply precious, and the lyrics come from a solidly romanticist perspective, but the song could have benefitted from a little guitar grit. The album ends with "Ain't For Free," a bluesy mid-tempo honky-tonker that smolders in the grooves and features a different side of Lofgren's guitar skills.

After touring in support of Gone Crazy, Grin would break up in 1974 and Lofgren would stay with A&M Records, delivering his critically-acclaimed self-titled debut album a year later, fully launching a successful and varied career that is still going strong today. Although the Grin chapter of Nils Lofgren's musical history has been obscured by his later work, it's nice to once again hear the underrated Gone Crazy, one of the true hidden gems among the band's sparse catalog. (Hip-O Select Records)

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(Click on the CD cover to buy Gone Crazy from Amazon.com)

The Amazing Nils Lofgren Bootleg Show!

One of the most highly-coveted “Holy Grails” of record collecting has always been Nils Lofgren’s Back It Up!! A 1975 promotional release by Lofgren’s label, A&M Records, the faux bootleg was actually cut live in the studio by Nils and band for a radio broadcast on San Francisco’s KSAN-FM. The folks at the label liked the performance so much that they decided that it was just the thing to light a fire under complacent FM radio programmers and support Lofgren’s critically-acclaimed self-titled debut album.

With much less corporate bureaucracy to struggle with back in those days, the idea of an authorized “bootleg” album shuffled around the offices and quickly became a reality, the label pressing up 1,000 copies of Back It Up!! on vinyl with a plain white cardboard sleeve and crude photocopied insert, as was the style of bootleggers at the time. The label mailed ‘em out to radio stations and the press and although it netted Lofgren a fair amount of airplay and hype, history has proven that it did little to boost his record sales above those of any mid-card punter.

As laid out by Bud Scoppa’s informative liner notes for Back It Up!! Live…An Authorized Bootleg, the label was hot to send the promo album out as a regular release, an idea nixed by the man Nils himself. Fearing that the live disc would interfere with sales of his second album, Cry Tough, the promo-only album was put back into the label’s vaults. Meanwhile, as Lofgren’s career continued on pace, with the talented guitarist eventually setting aside his solo work in favor of a gig with Springsteen’s E Street Band, the status of Back It Up!! continued to grow, a primo copy of the original PVC fetching low-to-mid three-figure prices in collector’s circles.

Now I had seen several bootleg copies of Back It Up!! circulating around the various record conventions that I worked during the late-70s/early-80s, especially in Detroit and Chicago, but the Reverend actually picked up his favored copy of the vinyl from a former label executive’s gotta-move-now-cause-I’m-outta-cash yard sale in Nashville for a mere $2.00. My copy looks like the real thing, but what the hell do I know? It could be a boot; if it is, it’s a good one: the vinyl sounds great and looks authentically grungy. Maybe I should do some DNA testing, though, ‘cause according to Scoppa, his roommate – noted rock critic R. Meltzer – was hired by the label to fix the inserts to the sleeve, his sweat inevitably mixing with the sticky glue.

The main reason why Back It Up!! remains a valued collectible after all these years isn’t solely because of its scarcity, or lack thereof (I’ve probably seen over 1,000 copies myself at shows through the years, if you catch my meaning). No, the album is valued above other label promo items ‘cause it rocks like a leopard on a treadmill, whatever that means. It’s a great selection of songs…a couple from Nils Lofgren, the debut album; a couple of vintage Grin cuts (including the beautiful Like Rain); and a soulful turn on the Goffin-King chestnut Goin’ Back.

The performances captured by the album are simply electrifying, among the best you’ll hear from Nils, and these ears have heard a lot. Lofgren’s Keith Richards tribute, Keith Don’t Go (Ode To The Glimmer Twin) starts out with a tense, trippy guitar line straight from the Who playbook before breaking into Nils’ impassioned lyrical plea. The fretwork is stellar, Nils tearing off a number of superbly crushing solos built atop the brickyard rhythms provided by his brother, guitarist Tommy Lofgren.

I Don’t Want To Know, also from the solo debut, should have been a huge radio hit; a melodic rock number with fine vocal gymnastics and a BIG catchy hook guaranteed to grab you by the ears, it’s a classic tale of love and betrayal. This live version benefits from the addition of Al Kooper’s piano, the rock legend working on producing Lofgren’s sophomore effort at the time. The aforementioned cover of Goin’ Back offers Kooper’s light-hearted keyboard riffing and a breathless, smooth-as-silk vocal performance by Nils. Beggar’s Day jumps back into a rock groove after several pop-inflected cuts, the obscure Grin band cut showcasing some of Lofgren’s tuffest vox and even tougher fretwork, his slice-and-dice solos filleting the slightly funky rhythms of bassist Scott Ball and drummer Mike Zack.

Rock & roll, much like life, is full of “what if” moments. What if you had married the geek that later started that billion-dollar software business rather than the high school quarterback? What if you’d bought that Google stock at $12 per share like your father-in-law suggested? What if Mr. Miyagi had refused to teach that punk kid any of his slick moves? What would have happened to Lofgren’s career if an excellent live set like Back It Up!! had been released to compliment both his debut album and Cry Tough? Would it have been enough to put Nils in the national spotlight, where his native talent and dynamic onstage presence might have brought him the stardom he deserves?

As good as this set is, maybe Back It Up!! could have been better. Clocking in at slightly less than 45 minutes, the album feels incomplete by a song or two. Maybe Nils and his talented band only put these seven songs to tape, I don’t know. But if Hip-O Select had more of this stuff in the vault, they should have released an expanded version of Back It Up!! since it’s clearly the long-faithful fans that would be the most interested in this limited edition CD reissue.

Be that as it may, if you’re interested in this great disc, I’d recommend that rather than spend your coin on this A&M/Hip-O Select release, you surf over to the man’s web site (www.nilslofgren.com) and buy his virtually identical version of the album instead (titled Bootleg), which, contrary to the major label’s advertising campaign, beat their version to CD by almost six years. You can’t go wrong either way, ‘cause this is a classic disc deserving of a place on your shelf. (A&M Records/Hip-O Select)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Back It Up!! from Amazon.com, though in this instance we'd really rather that you bought it from Nils instead. Please. Go ahead, we'll wait. There's a link above.)

Nils Lofgren's Amazing "Wonderland"

There will be absolutely no argument about this, people – Nils Lofgren’s Across The Tracks should have been a mondo-huge radio hit. Period. I’ll hear no debate, no dispute, no qualifying…MONDO-HUGE radio hit! I’ve got the charts and pie graphs and seismograph readings to prove my point…and if that doesn’t convince you (wink, wink), I also have a ten-pound sledge and an itchy trigger-finger. Yeah, I thought so…

By the time of the 1983 release of Wonderland, Nils Lofgren had enjoyed status as a rock-n-roll wunderkind for over a decade, beginning with his brief tenure as part of Crazy Horse backing Neil Young, and continuing through his work with cult favorites Grin. Nils had half-a-dozen major label solo recordings under his belt by this time, but he was also on his second record label in only eight years, and had been unable to break free of the increasingly crowded rock guitarist pack. Lofgren seemed doomed to “also-ran” status for the remainder of his career, forever fated to being a critic’s darling. Critical acclaim doesn’t put beans on the table, however; you have to sell some records at some point in time.

Ultimately, when standing at the crossroads, he chose to put his career on the back-burner and take up Bruce Springsteen’s offer to join the E Street Band after the departure of popular guitarist Steve Van Zandt. The decision to take a walk down E Street made Lofgren a wealthy man, but one has to wonder if he has ever thought about what might have happened had he chosen to continue pursuing the brass ring on his own. Through the years, critics have pointed their collective fingers at various reasons for Lofgren’s failure to break through, from lack of label support and the unflinching ignorance of radio to the typically shallow production of the artist’s albums and even to Lofgren’s own lack of personality.

Wonderland was the last album that Lofgren recorded before jumping on the whirlwind Born In The U.S.A. tour with his New Jersey pal Bruce, and it stands tall among his best work. Contrary to what many pundits assert, Wonderland proves to this critic that Lofgren has no shortage of personality. A varied and heartfelt collection of material that was well-rehearsed and basically captured live in the studio, the album provides Lofgren with the guitar showcase that he had always deserved.

The aforementioned Across The Tracks is an energetic tale of star-crossed lovers, Lofgren’s spirited vocals complimented by a heavy drumbeat, an undeniably catchy melodic hook, great Romeo & Juliet lyrics and some damn fine guitar work. Edgar Winter throws in barely-audible backing vocals. Unlike some of the other songs on Wonderland, Across The Tracks doesn’t suffer from period production – this is a timeless rocker that plays across the decades. Kudos to Andy Newmark for his killer stompin’ on the drum kit…

Ole Nils switches gears with Into The Night, a moody, atmospheric semi-ballad that displays Lofgren’s abilities as a crooner, his passionate lyrics matched with a lush arrangement and subtle six-string flourishes. I Wait For You is a larger-than-life Springsteenesque mid-tempo rocker with stellar fretwork, notes flying everywhere as the drums ring clear like a jackhammer, Kevin McCormick’s throbbing bass tossing the boys a lifeline to pull them out of this emotional quicksand. The title cut is a syncopated, slightly Latin-flavored tune that reminds me of NYC; with backing vocals by the underrated, can’t-outstay-her-welcome-in-my-house Louise Goffin, the song is an enchanting romp through, well, Wonderland.

Wonderland was produced by Lofgren with his long-time bandmates McCormick and Newmark, and the work they did was ‘magnifico,’ accentuating their instrumental strengths and Nils’ solid songwriting chops while pushing Lofgren’s sometimes too-slight vocals to new heights. Confident Girl is a great example of the chemistry between the three, Lofgren’s guitar blazing with laser-like intensity while his vocals speak of a confidence that was sometimes lacking from his earlier work. Throw in some nice three-part harmonies and a one-two rhythmic knockout punch and Confident Girl could have easily been the second hit single from the album. Goffin also chimes in on the reggae-splashed Everybody Wants, Lofgren channeling his inner-Garland (i.e. Jeffreys) on this warm, infectious tune.

That’s not to say that there’s not a little chaff among Wonderland’s many pearls. Deadline might be a great song live, but as captured in the studio, it just stinks up the joint. The guys fell prey to the “sound de jour” and mucked up a song with an otherwise scorching guitar solo with new wavy synth punctuation that sounds hopelessly out-of-date a quarter-century later. Plus, Newmark’s delicious bass-heavy drumming is tossed aside in favor of a tinnier, repetitive, ‘radio-friendly’ snare drum beat that would induce a migraine in even the heartiest of listeners. The entire song sounds not dissimilar to the dreck produced by a lot of major label bands at the time, all trying to get their stuff on MTV. Ditto for Lonesome Ranger, a meager ballad that wastes Carly Simon’s perfectly good backing vocals in the creation of a funky, plasticized grab for airplay; there’s nothing here to differentiate it from a dozen other, slicker period bands that don’t have a tenth of this trio’s talent.

Overall, Wonderland signals the beginning of an evolution in Nils Lofgren’s creative direction. He would make one more very good (and similar) solo album in 1985’s Flip before taking the next six years away from recording. When Nils came back to the studio, he had matured as both an artist and a guitarist. He had toured the world as part of the biggest, baddest instrumental ensemble that has ever graced a stage in the E Street Band, taking part in marathon live shows that would test the talents of any musician. By the time of 1991’s Silver Lining, Lofgren had better than two decades under his belt and his vision was clear, his influences fully absorbed.

Although Lofgren’s creative output has been infrequent in the 24 years since Wonderland, resigned mostly to live albums and performances, there is no doubt that this album stands as a high water mark for the guitarist’s astounding career, an often overlooked album (released by American Beat for the first time in the U.S. on CD) well deserving of another listen. (American Beat Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Wonderland from Amazon.com)