Nick Lowe

It wouldn't be quite right to call Nick Lowe one of the great unsung heroes of British rock and pop. For one, his songs are a little too popular for that. For two, one of his songs in particular, 'The Beast in Me', was written for and performed by none other than his then father-in-law, Johnny Cash. And no one can say they're unsung after they've been sung by Cash.

Having said that, though, the 58-year-old Lowe - pictured performing in 1979 - is by no means as famous as he deserves to be, given his distinct and witty influence on British popular music over the past 40 years. After coming to prominence in 1970 with his country rock band Brinsley Schwarz, he went on to work with the seminal label Stiff Records in the late 1970s and mid-1980s, producing records for Elvis Costello and punk act The Damned as well as recording his own material. His best-known song from that era is probably 1985's 'I Knew the Bride When she Used to Rock and Roll', a tribute to Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell'. The song that made his fortune, though, is 1974's '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding', which was covered by Curtis Stigers for the soundtrack to the 1992 Whitney Houston film 'The Bodyguard'. That soundtrack sold 15 million copies, making him independently rich: which perhaps surprised no one so much as the unassuming Lowe himself.

Since then, he's kept on keeping on, putting out albums every few years, of which the most recent is 'At My Age', released on 26 June. Hence his appearance on BBC4, singing songs from that album and others, to remind his audience and the rest of us of what a fine musician and songwriter he is: genial, ironic, idiosyncratic. 'I didn't want to become one of those thinning-haired, jowly old geezers who still do the same schtick they did when they were young, slim and beautiful,' he has said. 'That's revolting and rather tragic.' Happily, that fate has never seemed less likely.

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