Nils Lofgren: Rock's Singular Journeyman Guitarist

Music Monthly
Published: November, 2001
by JOHN DUFFY

For the second time in his career, eternally youthful Nils Lofgren follows up two whirlwind years on the road with Bruce Springsteen by heading out on tour with impressive momentum in support of his own music. A battered old acoustic guitar in a case with only a heavy thumb pick opened an amazing world for a rock smitten kid growing up in the suburbs of Washington D.C.

Picking up that old guitar, he struggled for nine months learning to play with his fingers instead of a flatpick. When other players told him he needed to use a pick like everyone else, the kid didn’t want to start all over again, and instead developed into one of the most respected fingerpicking rock guitar players out there alongside Lindsey Buckingham and Mark Knopfler) .

Nils Lofgren; short, angel-voiced and possessing a personality as Spartan as his build, would become a giant among sidemen guitar players, possessor of a versatile, yet singularly recognizable tone on both electric and acoustic, and a professional of the first order. But the kid was just bumming around Kensington (his family moved when he was 8-years-old from Michigan) and jamming in groups like Paul Dowell and The Dolphin (who even released a couple of singles).

Lofgren remembers those young, wild years, fondly, sneaking backstage at The Cellar Door in attempts to meet his idols; seeing The Who, The Animals, and The Rolling Stones when they came through town. But at one particular concert that seems to grow in legend every year among D.C. players who were there, Lofgren saw his future. At 16, he saw Jimi Hendrix play at The Ambassador Ballroom in Washington and it changed his life, convincing him that this “music thing” was the way to go. He dropped out Walter Johnson High School and formed Grin with Bob Berberich and Bobby “Flash” Gordon.

Playing around the Washington D.C. area, the group caught the attention of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, who took the group out the to west coast to play. Lofgren eventually joined Crazy Horse on Neil Young’s definitive early work After The Gold Rush. That’s Nils playing piano on the scathing “Southern Man” and the whimsical title track. He played guitar on several of the album’s other cuts. Young gave him a Martin D-18 as a souvenir from the session. Nils still has it today.

At the time, he was still just 18. Using the leverage of having worked with Young, Lofgren got Grin a deal with CBS subsidiary Spindizzy. The group produced several worthwhile albums produced by Young collaborator David Briggs before splitting up due to the financial realities of keeping a band on the road that couldn’t quite get any big hits. One night opening for Mountain splinter group West, Bruce & Laing in front of 3,000 drunk college kids, Lofgren found that rock and roll is sometimes a life or death fight.

Grin’s gear didn’t make the gig, but Nils decided to play anyway. “I figured I’d go out there with an acoustic and do a few songs, just so my band could get paid,” he remembers with the good humor that nearly thirty years brings to such trauma. He closed his eyes and played, unaware that bottles were being thrown at him and breaking on the stage and drum kit. After being dragged off the stage by his manager, the promoter paid Nils to not finish his set, afraid of getting sued should a half-drunk bottle of Jim Beam crack Nils in the noggin.

This kind of life took its toll on Grin, and the band finally split in 1975, just in time for Lofgren to rejoin Young in support of Tonight’s the Night. At the time Nils was rumored to be one of the Rolling Stones’ choices to replace the departing Mick Taylor, though that has never been confirmed. Instead, Nils’ solo career took off in 1975 with the one-two punch of Nils Lofgren and Cry Tough, followed by several exceptional albums, including the live Night After Night, and A Rhythm Romance.

Following Neil Young’s maligned Trans album and tour, Lofgren joined Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band in early 1984, just in time to learn the departing Steve Van Zandt’s guitar parts and hit the road for eighteen months to support the massively successful Born In the U.S.A. He played on Springsteen’s subdued Tunnel Of Love album in 1987, and went back to solo work full time when the E Street Band was cut loose in 1991.

Crooked Line, his most lauded solo album yet, came in 1991. Lofgren filled the void with a couple more fine solo records (Crooked Line and Silver Lining among them), and joined Ringo Starr’s first All-Star Band tour alongside fellow E Streeter Clarence Clemons and other stars. When Springsteen went into the studio to add four new tracks to a Greatest Hits package, Lofgren and Van Zandt both played a part. And of course, Bruce’s 1999-2000 world tour reuniting the E Street Band for the fist time onstage in eleven years featured both guitar players as well. Which brings us to Break Away Angel, Lofgren’s 16th album since Grin’s 1971 debut 30 years ago.

A warm collection of songs combining Nils’ sincere, airy tenor (which gets pleasingly more rough with age) and his sharp acoustic guitar prowess, it is the culmination of a sound Lofgren has been developing since the early 1990s. On the soulful “Cryin’ Tonight” and the rich, Bruce Cockburn-ish folk-rock of “Driftin’ Man,” (co-written with Lou Reed) Nils’ pinched, harmonically rich guitar tone takes center stage. When he launches into one of those frantic solos on his choice Takamine, the distinction between acoustic and electric is blurred to its most hazy edge. This sound reaches its most exciting level on “The Hill,” a blue beat that cautions of the consequences of blind revenge.

A gentle cover of “All I Have To Do Is Dream” will make even the toughest manly man’s eyes water, and the joys of true love recounted in “I Found You” (featuring Jeff “Skunk’ Baxter on pedal steel) would make a perfect addition to that mix tape you’re sending to a distant girlfriend. Nils makes a nod to his past, closing the album with a very Youngish benediction, “Open Road,” even mimicking his former employers harmonica playing and gentle strum closely.

In fact, there is hardly an electric guitar on the whole of Break Away Angel, amazing considering Lofgren’s initial reluctance at playing without a 50 Watt Fender Super Reverb to plug into. “I did some acoustic shows with my brother [former Grin guitarist] Tom in the early 1980s that just came off feeling unnatural. It was uncomfortable and intimidating.” Lofgren persisted though, and soon realized the unique power of playing essentially unamplified and alone. “But there is a great intimacy to playing acoustically, you can play things that are more melodic, intricate.”

He of course got it right, and by the 1990s was one of the most dynamic, exciting acoustic acts then on the road, in addition to being a respected electric player from his work with young and especially Springsteen (check out both his slithering intro and blazing solo on the Boss’ “War” from Live 1975-85). Next time, Lofgren says, he’ll try something a little more electric and funky. “I’m pretty schizophrenic that way, Its just where I think I’ll be,” he reasons. The album was cut partly in Arizona, where Lofgren now lives with his wife Amy and son Dylan, partly with Timm Biery at Go! Digital Studios in Beltsville, mixed partly in Arizona and with Ron Freeland at Burnt Hill in Clarksburg, Maryland.

Speaking from his home, Lofgren is busy packing and gearing up for a five-week tour of the U.K. in support of Break Away Angel. A three-night stand at The Ram’s Head in Annapolis Oct. 19-21 helped whip his band into shape for the slog across England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. (He returns to the D.C. area with three acoustic nights at Wolf Trapp in February). In order to keep touring expenses at a minimum, he and his three-piece band will play a grueling 26 shows in 30 days. “I’ve done it before,” he says, passing off the severity of such a swing with manly bravado. “Its not the best time to be traveling,” he confesses, “but this is what I do… It’s not traveling first class like with Bruce or Ringo,” he admits.

Huffing it in a van for five weeks may seem a couple rungs down from touring the world with Springsteen and the world’s greatest rock and roll band, but if you ask him, Lofgren insists he has the best of both worlds. “I love fronting my own band and playing my own music, but anytime I get to go out on the road with someone like Neil or Bruce or Ringo its like a vacation, but it recharges my batteries and keeps me involved in music,” he explains.

Which means every time he goes out on the road with his own band playing theater and club sized venues, he can focus the energy of three nights at the MCI Center to down to three nights at the Ram’s Head with relative ease. “And playing in front of 200 people you can’t hide,” he declares. Though Bruce has no immediate plans for The E Street Band, Nils (now a youthful 50) stands ready for whatever might happen next. And to think, Lofgren figured by the time he turned 21, he’d be forced something else to do for the rest of his life. “We never even figured you could make a living doing this.”