POP MUSIC REVIEW : Enduring, Endearing Nick Lowe : The strength of the British popster’s songs and his good-natured delivery are enough to satisfy old, new fans.

It takes a special brand of cleverness to come up with album titles such as “The Abominable Showman” or lyric lines such as “You’re pretty cold mama like a Utah night / Everything about you refrigerator white.” But while a glib tongue can only say so much, Nick Lowe’s clever turns also benefit from an abundance of heart and an obvious love for the pop music form he is so expert in plundering.

The veteran British popster’s fans gave him a rousing, standing ovation just for walking on stage at the Coach House on Sunday, and that adulation proved not misplaced. Though nearly a stranger to the American charts (only his “Cruel to Be Kind” reached No. 15 in 1979) and only recently regaining the critical acclaim he had received in the late ‘70s, Lowe’s career-spanning 17-song solo set displayed a consistently brilliant song-crafting.

Drawing from such stylistic sources as the Everly Brothers and Paul McCartney, and spun about by a wicked sense of humor, both his catalogue tunes and songs from his current “Party of One” album had a swizzle-stick sparkle.

Lowe started in the late ‘60s with the British pub band Brinsley Schwarz, though it wasn’t until the punk movement kicked off that he hit his songwriting stride. His set Sunday included such artifacts from that era as the late-’70’s “So It Goes,” “Cruel to Be Kind,” “Without Love” and “When I Write the Book,” issued in ’80 by Rockpile, the band he fronted with Dave Edmunds.

The performance included lesser-known gems such as his “The Rose of England” and “Raining Raining,” the latter Everlys-like ballad delivered in a hushed whisper. While so reveling in the pop medium that some regard them as parodies, his “Heart” and “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding” also had a lot of feeling to them, and that’s the side Lowe showed when he sang them Sunday.

To those of us who are fans of Lowe’s albums, these songs stand as solid hits, helping to define the time that produced them, much the way hearing a Lovin’ Spoonful song might conjure images of 1966. It’s a bit odd to realize that most people have no such associations with those songs, since they never had a chance to hear them on the radio.

It seems that is to be Lowe’s fate. As Lowe noted of his current “Party of One” album: “It sold about four copies, that did. It was very depressing.” Though dead on the charts, he did enlivened versions of several of its songs. He took a walk on the wry side with “Refrigerator White,” and “All Men Are Liars,” in which he aptly rhymed “Rick Astley” with “ghastly.”

Announcing that “tonight you’ll see something only attempted by the very foolish or the very drunk,” Lowe proceeded to accompany himself with only a bass on “(I Want to Build a) Jumbo Ark.” The lumbering instrument worked fine, as he detailed a modern Noah and his “stretch 747”: “I’m gonna have to take extra cattle and swine / Cause the beasts on each other do love to dine.” As fine a humorist as he is, the finest album song in the show was his hushed version of the beautifully sad “What’s Shaking on the Hill.”

Lowe’s live performances have always paled beside his recordings, perhaps because he is such a splendid producer. (His productions range from the Damned to the Fabulous Thunderbirds to Elvis Costello. Lowe’s nickname “Basher” comes from his simple recording credo, “Bash it down; tart it up”.) And unlike his pal, Elvis Costello, who reinterprets his songs practically every time he sings them, Lowe just gave a straight reading of his songs. Fortunately the strength of those songs and his good-natured delivery was more than sufficient to earn two encore calls.

Orange County’s Kerry Getz opened the show with an eight-song set that suggested that with some seasoning and a good deal of self-editing, she could be onto something pretty special. At present some of her musical transitions seemed awkward and her vocal displays at times ran away from her lyrics. But at heart there’s some solid, honest songwriting, exemplified on the break-up song “Good for You” and her reflective, moody “Apollo.”