At 59 and looking like a professor emeritus with his distinguished white hair, Nick Lowe has decided not to play the part of power-pop icon.

Instead, as the title of his latest record, "At My Age," suggests, Lowe is now the country-folk balladeer traveling with just his acoustic guitar in hand. But, he says, "It's quite an entertaining evening. I don't want people to think, 'Oh, God, here comes some old geezer with an acoustic guitar. This is going to be dreary.' " The New York Times has his back, describing a recent show as "elegant and nearly devastating" -- in a good way.

"At My Age" is Lowe's first record in six years, protracted by a series of momentous events in his personal life, including becoming a father three years ago. It's a relaxed and plain-spoken record that draws upon his interest in country music -- his onetime father-in-law was Johnny Cash, after all -- with just a hint of the old churning rhythms.

The ballad approach is a departure from Lowe's roots in England's pub rock and power-pop movements as a solo artist and with the groups Brinsley Schwarz and Rockpile. In the States, he could be called a one-hit wonder (1979's "Cruel to be Kind"), but he's also known for the songs "All Men Are Liars," "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" and "I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll."

When punk rock arrived, Lowe was there with the first single on Stiff Records, "So It Goes"/"Heart of the City," and as an in-house producer for the label, he produced The Damned's "Damned Damned Damned" and the first several Elvis Costello records, the first of which included a cover of his classic "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."

Recently, the British gentleman talked to us about the age thing and the solo tour that brings him to the Byham on Sunday.

It's been a long time between albums. It's like one of those job gaps on your resume where they go, ''So what you have you been doing?"

Yeah. I know. It doesn't look very good, does it? I suppose the short answer is that I kept getting knocked out of the groove of the recording process. The process is, you get two or three songs that come along at once, a little bubble of creative success. Then, you go into the studio and record them and if that goes well, that little bunch of songs will serve as the engine that drives the rest of the process. It might take 18 months or two years. That is how it normally happens to me. Unfortunately, due to these various dramas that were happening to me in my private life, I kept getting knocked out of the groove.

I lost both of my parents. They were ancient, so it wasn't expected, but it still was not much fun. And much to my astonishment, I had a little boy who turned up rather late in life, especially to someone like myself, who led a life of almost total selfishness up until then and everything was marvelous, and I came and went as I pleased. All of that has kind of bitten the dust and I'm awash in, like, school fees and God knows what [laughs]. But it has its compensations.

This is called "At My Age." What are the expectations of rockers at your age? Should they be prancing around like the Mick and Keith or going back to rootsier, folkier music?

I started thinking about this back in the early '80s when my career as a pop star wound down. I always knew it was going to wind down because I wasn't one of those curious people like Elton John and Cher. I don't know of anyone who buys Elton John or Cher records, but clearly, millions do. They're icons. They seem to have this career in pop that just spans the decades.

I knew I was never going to be one of those people. Also, because I produced records, I had hung out with the business types and I knew how they talked about artists. They think they're idiots. And I'd even joined in the laughter at some points. I knew it was going to happen. So I was very sensitive to the first signs. As soon as the phone stopped ringing, you know, no one wanted to phone you up and ask your opinion on stuff. Or the first time I turned up at a nightclub, and normally would have just walked, it was "Hold on, mate. What's your name?"

So, when it happened, in a way I was quite relieved. I was an alcoholic, basically, and my marriage had not so much collapsed but disappeared. I was ill and washed up, wrung out, void of ideas, churning out the same old stuff, which was boring me to tears. So I was quite relieved on the one hand that it was all over, but on the other hand, I thought, "Well what are you going to do now?" I thought, "Well, I've done pretty well on paper. I've had a couple hits and written a few for other people. And produced some good records. Why is it that I feel that I haven't even done anything yet?"

At that time, there were no pop stars over 40 then. Unlike jazz or blues or country-western back then, you couldn't be too old. Who wants to hear a kid singing the blues? It doesn't work. But not in pop. I suppose there was Frank Sinatra, but there was no history of people getting old in pop music. So I said I'm going to figure this out so I could use the fact that I'm getting older in this business as a real advantage, so people would go, "I can't wait till I'm as old as that Nick Lowe." So, I thought, I need to take a little bit of this, a little bit of this country-western ....

It was more like how to present myself in a way that was natural, not too far away from what I actually was, instead of having to squeeze myself into leather trousers or something and do some unseemly act.

Seems like you were really aiming for a quiet honesty and simplicity with these songs ...

Yeah, I suppose so. I hope it's not too earnest. I don't want it to be perceived as if it's Poe-faced or holier than thou.

No, I think there's still a wry quality to it.

Oh, well, I don't mind that.

There's a reference in your bio to a "diary-set-to-music" style. How does that apply to this?

That is a sort of misquote. It's amazing that people have picked up on that. What I actually said is, "I don't set my diary to music." Somehow it got misconstrued. I said the opposite when I was talking to the person. Having said that, I know what I'm singing about. If I put "I" in the song, it's not necessarily true 'cause I write pop songs and I make it up. Because of getting older you want to sing songs that have a little bit of weight to them or are about something. If I'm trying to express something about feeling blue and low-down, I know how that feels. It's impossible to get to the age of 50 and beyond without knowing how it feels to be kicked around a bit. But the actual stories aren't necessarily true at all.

I know you're beloved in power-pop circles. Are they crying out for you to keep doing what you were doing?

That seems to have quieted down now. For a while, when I decided I want to do something that is much more considered, I lost a large chunk of my audience, because they said, "Nick Rocketh Not" and off they went. The upside of that is that I seem to attract a new audience, more women and younger people who aren't remotely interested in the stuff I did when I was younger.

Even though you had been around, you had a big part in the punk revolution. What were thoughts on these musicians when they came along?

The reality is that the whole roots of the punk thing in the UK started in the pub rock movement. That's where the disaffected music people went to. It became a blues boogie thing, but, initially, there were some great people in it: Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and his original group were great -- original and exciting. There were a lot of disaffected people. When we got Stiff Records going, which was a little before the punk thing, our aim was to cause mischief. We wanted to shake up the music business and it was ripe for that. We wanted to make some heads roll ....

Then when punk came along, it was much more attractive. The groups looked better. They were younger than us, only a few years, but they were crucial. When I produced The Damned, I think I was only 26, and they called me grandad or uncle. I did feel of another generation. They were a really good group, but I never cared for punk music. Never cared for that rhythm. That thumpy, thumpy, shouty rhythm just sounded too white for me. I was of a generation that liked soul and grooves, and it was really uncool to like that. But what I did have in abundance was that I wanted to shake things up and pull the playhouse down. My interest was in that. And all the younger kids knew that, so I was accepted in those circles as well.

One of your most enduring songs is "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." In the past five years, it's been used very powerfully. What were the circumstances of writing it?

Well, I always cite that one as being the first original idea I had. When you start out writing songs you take your hero's catalog and basically rewrite it, change a word here or there. And that's the best you can do. Everyone has to start out like that. Then you move on to someone else's catalog and someone else's. Then, one day, you'll be rewriting the latest person's, but you stick in a little bit of the first person you wrote. And then the next, someone else's influences until you get your own style made up of all these people you like.

I had gotten to that point. The day that I thought of that idea, it shocked me 'cause it was such a great idea. It was originally sort of a joke. It was written in the early '70s, when people had gotten disillusioned with the hippie dream, realized they made a terrible mistake thinking it was some fantastic movement that was going to change the world. They felt stupid about it and rather dismissed it. The song was written from the point of a view of a diehard hippie saying to all these people, "Oh, you're all into cocaine now and your smart new way of looking at things, but while you're laughing at me, what's so funny about peace and love?" I suppose the original idea was making fun of this hippie, but I remember thinking, "Now, don't go too over the top here 'cause this a great idea. Keep it so that it could be interpreted one or two ways."

The song would have died along with Brinsley Schwarz had it not been for Elvis Costello. It was he who recorded the song and brought that anthemic quality to it, and everyone thinks he wrote it, and I don't mind one scrap.

So, I don't think about this hippie anymore. I'm on board with everyone else as hearing this heartfelt plea for world peace. The hippie in me looks forward to a time when it will be redundant and forgotten, but it doesn't show any sign of that happening.