Eric Lowen obit

ERIC LOWEN, who half of the long-running singer/songwriter duo Lowen & Navarro, died on Friday in L.A. He was 60. The cause was complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which had been diagnosed in 2004. The Utica, NY-born Lowen and Dan Navarro (the brother of Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro) met as singing waiters in a West Hollywood restaurant in the late 1970s, kicking off a partnership that yielded “We Belong,” a big hit for Pat Benatar in 1984, and they continued to perform together until 2009, when Lowen’s condition made it impossible. A tribute album for the benefit of Lowen’s family and ALS charities, Keep the Light Alive: Celebrating the Music of Lowen & Navarro, featuring Jackson Browne, the Bangles and others, was released in 2010. “We were never really huge, but we went on for a long time,” Navarro told the N.Y. Times, adding of Lowen: “He said, ‘I want to keep going.’ We managed five years, 250 shows and three albums. After the diagnosis.” Lowen is survived by his wife, Kim Ferguson; a brother, Neal; a sister, Karen George, known as Kai; two children, Samuel and Annie-Claire, who are twins; and three stepchildren, Thomas, Katelyn and Hayley Ferguson, triplets who are the same age, 18, as their step-siblings. (3/29a)