How bad can it be to be Nick Lowe? That shock of fluffy white hair notwithstanding, the guy seems like he doesn’t know what stress is. The onetime Brinsley Schwartz pub-rocker, seminal Stiff Records producer, and punk pioneer releases albums at a glacial pace. He enjoys critical respectability coupled with the kind of low-level semi-fame that comes from being known more for your songwriting and production work than for your singing. In addition to manning the boards for Elvis Costello’s breathless first five albums and penning “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” — which remains one of the most popular tunes in Costello’s catalog — he produced The Damned’s debut in album in 1977, and The Pretenders debut (with Chris Thomas) in 1980. He also had a minor stateside hit of his own in “Cruel to Be Kind” around the same time. Lowe’s own late 70s albums Jesus of Cool and Labour of Lust are classics of the New Wave era, introducing listeners to the wry sensibility that Lowe retained even as his musical interests shifted to roots-rock in the 80s and country in the 90s. But for the vast majority of his four-decade career, he’s been beloved by music geeks and — with the exception of the occasional blip here and there — largely unknown to the general public.

His current phase began with 1994’s The Impossible Bird, the first of four short and seriously soulful albums of pithy and insightful country-pop. When Johnny Cash covered one the songs from that record, “The Beast in Me” for his career-reviving, Grammy-winning 1994 American Recordings LP, it solidified perception of Lowe as a respected elder of songcraft (though he was only in his mid-40s at the time), a persona he acknowledges in the title of his new album, At My Age. (Bruce Springsteen is the same age – 58 – but he’s calling his new album Magic. Whatever you say, Boss.)