Where did it all go wrong for virtuoso heavy rock guitarist Nils Lofgren? As a 17-year-old wunderkind he jammed with Neil Young. His thunderous fretwork, full of pomp yet possessed of a sculptor's deftness, has graced records by Lou Reid and Creole revivalist Dr John. Yet, he continues to languish in cult obscurity, a minority-interest worshipped by a tiny clique.
On stage, his lowly profile proved doubly baffling. Drenched in big-sky bombast, Lofgren's oak-hearted work-outs bawled of mass adulation. Mingling sleazy blues riffs, crisp acoustic monologues and teasing keyboard patterns, his four-piece tour band cranked out an exquisite racket - redolent of prime Bruce Springsteen, one of Lofgren's innumerable sparring partners.
Where so many of his peers wallow in baby-boomer nostalgia, Lofgren disdains freewheeling sentiment, regarding his halcyon early 1970s output as a creative springboard rather than artistic ball and chain. Current long player Break Away Angel may have fleetingly scraped the underbelly of his heyday offerings, but Lofgren wasn't afraid to let new material stand cheek by jowl with hazy classics, such as Cry Tough and I Came to Dance.
Occasionally, Lofgren's grandstanding lapsed into rock-opera clichΘ. An audience can only consume so many preening solos and jokey guitar-bass exchanges in a single sitting. To the rescue came Lofgren's fine voice. A keening falsetto reminiscent of Thin White Duke-era Bowie, it provided earthy counterweight to the great hunks of riffola tumbling our way.
Until he removed a pair of wraparound mirror-shades and revealed eyes milky with age, Lofgren could have passed for a lusty 20-something hipster, hung up on old Crazy Horse albums. Those lush compositions, rooted in their epoch, are equally ageless.
