Nick Lowe had his biggest hit back in 1979 with “Cruel to be Kind,” a catchy tune that was a perfect example of the British songwriter’s ironic sense of humor and pop sensibility. The chorus concluded with the memorable line “Cruel to be kind means that I love you.”
In recent years, Lowe, now 68, has been enjoying something of a revival. His 1974 song “(What’s so Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” has been performed and recorded by several artists this year in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election. Meantime, Lowe, also a longtime record producer, has been appearing on late-night TV and performing with various backing bands.
One of those bands has been so taken by Lowe’s songs that they’ve recorded instrumental versions of his music. Los Straitjackets, the instrumental-guitar band known for performing in Mexican wrestling masks, covers 13 Lowe classics on their new album, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love And … Los Straitjackets.”
The Grammy-nominated band, which comes to Northampton’s Iron Horse on Sunday at 7 p.m., also riffs on Lowe with an album cover that’s an homage to the one from the Brit’s 1978 album “Jesus of Cool” (“Pure Pop for Now People” in the U.S.), which featured six pictures of Lowe wearing garish outfits and competing hairstyles.
The Straitjackets won’t have Lowe with them at The Iron Horse. But they will share the bill with another pop icon from around that era: rocker and songwriter Marshall Crenshaw, who has been a regular in Northampton over the years.
“We backed up Nick during a Christmas tour four or five years ago, and we had a blast,” said Pete Curry, the Straitjackets’ bassist, during a recent phone call from his home in Los Angeles. “Then we did some later tours with him … we’re all big fans of his music.
“Nick has a great sense of melody and a great sense of humor,” Curry added. “That’s really a necessity to survive in the music entertainment business.”
The Straitjackets, who formed in Nashville in the late 1980s with a somewhat different lineup, bring some of that same sensibility to their music. They’ve got a crisp sound that incorporates surf music, rockabilly, pop and rock, with influences that include guitarists like Duane Eddy, Dick Dale and Link Wray, as well as British Invasion bands such as The Beatles.
The masks they wear came about after guitarist Danny Amis returned with a clutch of them from a visit to Mexico City and suggested the band make them part of their shows.
“It’s one of those things where half the audience thinks it’s stupid, and the other half thinks it’s cool,” Curry said with a laugh. “I think Danny’s idea was that if we were going to stand there and just play instrumental music, we should have something else for the audience.”
The Straitjackets’ new album came together pretty quickly this past winter, said Curry, who recorded it in California with Nick Lowe’s longtime producer and friend, the late Neil Brockbank. As on the band’s other albums, which consist mostly of original compositions, all of the group’s members had a hand in shaping the Lowe covers.
“Some of the guys had specific ideas for songs, but [the album] mostly got fleshed out by all of us sitting down together to try out different ideas,” Curry noted.
The album includes both “Cruel to be Kind” and “Peace, Love and Understanding,” but both have been slowed down considerably. “Peace, Love and Understanding” is built around repeated acoustic guitar riffs, bongos and muted electric guitar, with almost a bossa nova feel. “Cruel to be Kind” is slow and stately, like an early 1960s romantic ballad, with drums only coming in on the chorus section.
“We did some songs pretty much at the original tempo, but we wanted to reimagine some of them, too,” said Curry.
“I Live on a Battlefield,” for example, Lowe’s melancholy tune about failed romance, is turned into a danceable rocker with an early 60s feel, with whammy bar on the guitars and solos that alternate between the low and high frets. “Half a Boy and Half a Man” sounds like it could be right at home on a Los Lobos album.
The album was mastered in Great Britain by Brockbank, who added some discrete keyboards and other instruments to some tracks. He also got some input from the Lowe family: Lowe does a small guest vocal on one song, and his 11-year-old son, Royston, plays a bit of drums.
Curry says the Straitjackets will play an assortment of cuts from the new album, as well as some other instrumentals, at The Iron Horse show. Then they’ll be joined by Marshall Crenshaw, who will sing not only some of his melodic hits — “Cynical Girl,” “Someday, Someway” — but some of Lowe’s tunes, with the band backing him up.
Crenshaw has appeared at The Iron Horse before (as have Los Straitjackets) with the Bottle Rockets in a somewhat similar arrangement. In this case, Curry said, the Straitjackets’ manager knows Crenshaw — the two both live in the Hudson River Valley in New York — and suggested he tour with the band.
“We really like playing with other musicians, so it made a lot of sense,” said Curry, who noted that Crenshaw’s songs “are pretty complicated, so it was a challenge to learn them — kind of like starting from scratch, but a lot of fun.”
The tour with Crenshaw will take the band through New England and the mid-Atlantic states this month, and to the West Coast in September. Then in October, the Straitjackets will tour again with Nick Lowe in selected U.S. cities.
Curry recalls first hearing of Lowe in the late 1970s when he discovered a single of his — an old-school 45 rpm of “So It Goes/Heart of the City” — at a record store in his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA. Every since, he says, he’s been a fan of his music.
“Nick’s kind of in Phase Two of his career, and it’s great to be a part of that with him,” he said.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
Los Straitjackets and Marshall Crenshaw play The Iron Horse on Sunday at 7 p.m. For tickets and additional information, visit iheg.com.