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Thread started 10/27/13 10:45am

Timmy84

RIP Lou Reed



Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71

New York legend, who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, underwent a liver transplant in May

October 27, 2013 12:38 PM ET

Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. "One chord is fine," he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. "Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed was born in Brooklyn, in 1942. A fan of doo-wop and early rock & roll (he movingly inducted Dion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989), Reed also took formative inspiration during his studies at Syracuse University with the poet Delmore Schwartz. After college, he worked a staff songwriter for the novelty label Pickwick Records (where he had a minor hit in 1964 with a dance-song parody called "The Ostrich"). In the mid-Sixties, Reed befriended Welsh musician John Cale, a classically trained violist who had performed with groundbreaking minimalist composer La Monte Young. Reed and Cale formed a band called the Primitives, then changed their name to the Warlocks. After meeting guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker, they became the Velvet Underground. With a stark sound and ominous look, the band caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who incorporated the Velvets into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable. "Andy would show his movies on us," Reed said. "We wore black so you could see the movie. But we were all wearing black anyway."

"Produced" by Warhol and met with total commercial indifference when it was released in early 1967, VU’s debut The Velvet Underground & Nico stands as a landmark on par with the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. Reed's matter-of-fact descriptions of New York’s bohemian demimonde, rife with allusions to drugs and S&M, pushed beyond even the Rolling Stones’ darkest moments, while the heavy doses of distortion and noise for it’s own sake revolutionized rock guitar. The band’s three subsequent albums – 1968’s even more corrosive sounding White Light/White Heat, 1969’s fragile, folk-toned The Velvet Underground and 1970’s Loaded, which despite being recorded while he was leaving the group, contained two Reed-standards “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Jane,” were similarly ignored. But they’d be embraced by future generations, cementing the Velvet Underground’s status as the most influential American rock band of all time.

After splitting with the Velvets in 1970, Reed traveled to England and, in characteristically paradoxical fashion, recorded a solo debut backed by members of the progressive-rock band Yes. But it was his next album, 1972’s Transformer, produced by Reed-disciple David Bowie, that pushed him beyond cult status into genuine rock stardom. “Walk On the Wild Side,” a loving yet unsentimental evocation of Warhol’s Factory scene, became a radio hit (despite its allusions to oral sex) and “Satellite of Love” was covered by U2 and others. Reed spent the Seventies defying expectations almost as a kind of sport. 1973’s Berlin was brutal literary bombast while 1974’s Sally Can’t Dance had soul horns and flashy guitar. In 1975 he released Metal Machine Music, a seething all-noise experiment his label RCA marketed as a avant-garde classic music, while 1978’s banter-heavy live album Take No Prisoners was a kind of comedy record in which Reed went on wild tangents and savaged rock critics by name (“Lou sure is adept at figuring out new ways to shit on people,” one of those critics, Robert Christgau, wrote at the time). Explaining his less-than-accommodating career trajectory, Reed told journalist Lester Bangs, “my bullshit it worth more than other people’s diamonds.”

Reed’s ambiguous sexual persona and excessive drug use throughout the Seventies was the stuff of underground rock myth. But in the Eighties, he began to mellow. He married Sylvia Morales and opened a window into his new married life on 1982’s excellent The Blue Mask, his best work since Transformer. His 1984 album New Sensations took a more commercial turn and 1989’s New York ended the decade with a set of funny, politically cutting songs that received universal critical praise. In 1991, he collaborated with Cale on Songs For Drella, a tribute to Warhol. Three years later, the Velvet Underground reunited for a series of successful European gigs.
Reed and Morales divorced in the early Nineties. Within a few years, Reed began a relationship with musician-performing artist Laurie Anderson. The two became an inseparable New York fixture, collaborating and performing live together, while also engaging in civic and environmental activism. They were married in 2008.
Reed continued to follow his own idiosyncratic artistic impulses throughout the ‘00s. The once-decadent rocker became an avid student of T-ai Chi, even bringing his instructor onstage during concerts in 2003. In 2005 he released a double-CD called The Raven, based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. In 2007, he released an ambient album titled Hudson River Wind Meditations. Reed returned to mainstream rock with 2011’s Lulu, a collaboration with Metallica.

“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter,” he told Rolling Stone in 1987. “They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”
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Reply #1 posted 10/27/13 10:49am

Serious

avatar

Oh no sad

With a very special thank you to Tina: Is hammer already absolute, how much some people verändern...ICH hope is never so I will be! And if, then I hope that I would then have wen in my environment who joins me in the A....
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Reply #2 posted 10/27/13 11:04am

JoeBala

Oh no. Liked Walk On The Wildside. RIP. Saw him once in a movie theater once with Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller.

Just Music-No Categories-Enjoy It!
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Reply #3 posted 10/27/13 11:18am

728huey

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Sadly, Lou took his final walk. His influence was substansial and his presence will be greatly missed. RIP Lou Reed.



cry sad pray rose dove music typing

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Reply #4 posted 10/27/13 11:33am

CocoRock

sad sad sad sad
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Reply #5 posted 10/27/13 11:33am

Javi

I can't believe it. How sad is this.

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Reply #6 posted 10/27/13 11:34am

Gunsnhalen

The man, the myth, the legend. Lou was a true musician! and pioneer in the music world. Velvet Underground were one of the first avant garde rock bands who had some amazing sounds. He also had a sing-talk poem way about his songs that made him unique in the rock world when heavy guitar rock like Zeppelin and Hendrix dominated.

[Edited 10/27/13 11:34am]

Pistols sounded like "Fuck off," wheras The Clash sounded like "Fuck Off, but here's why.."- Thedigitialgardener

All music is shit music and no music is real- gunsnhalen

Datdonkeydick- Asherfierce

Gary Hunts Album Isn't That Good- Soulalive
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Reply #7 posted 10/27/13 11:34am

JabarR74

728huey said:

Sadly, Lou took his final walk. His influence was substansial and his presence will be greatly missed. RIP Lou Reed.



cry sad pray rose dove music typing

As many know, "Marky" Mark Wahlberg and the Funky Bunch sampled that very song for...........

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Reply #8 posted 10/27/13 1:17pm

noimageatall

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Rock in peace Lou...



"Let love be your perfect weapon..." ~~Andy Biersack
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Reply #9 posted 10/27/13 1:51pm

Javi

Gunsnhalen said:

The man, the myth, the legend. Lou was a true musician! and pioneer in the music world. Velvet Underground were one of the first avant garde rock bands who had some amazing sounds. He also had a sing-talk poem way about his songs that made him unique in the rock world when heavy guitar rock like Zeppelin and Hendrix dominated.

[Edited 10/27/13 11:34am]

So true. And he composed one of the best albums about death ever published, Magic And Loss, which is terribly sad to remember now...

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Reply #10 posted 10/27/13 2:03pm

EddieC

Javi said:

Gunsnhalen said:

The man, the myth, the legend. Lou was a true musician! and pioneer in the music world. Velvet Underground were one of the first avant garde rock bands who had some amazing sounds. He also had a sing-talk poem way about his songs that made him unique in the rock world when heavy guitar rock like Zeppelin and Hendrix dominated.

[Edited 10/27/13 11:34am]

So true. And he composed one of the best albums about death ever published, Magic And Loss, which is terribly sad to remember now...

So true. I have no idea how many times I've listened to that album.

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Reply #11 posted 10/27/13 2:28pm

purplethunder3
121

avatar

Just read this on another site... Another one of the rock pioneers gone too soon... Goodnight, Lou...and thanks for the music.

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato

https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0
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Reply #12 posted 10/27/13 2:46pm

HuMpThAnG

rose
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Reply #13 posted 10/27/13 2:48pm

midnightmover

This was a real bolt out of the blue. Hard to believe he's really gone.

One of the literary crowd of songwriters Lou expanded the possibilities of popular song. Sunday Morning was one of my favourites, but Transformer was his defining moment. One of the best albums of all time. Period.

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
- Thomas Jefferson
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Reply #14 posted 10/27/13 2:53pm

JoeTyler

damn sad

one of those guys who seemed immortal until, well...death has no mercy, death makes no exceptions

one of my top25 greatest of all time, even if I'm not mad about his solo career (at least after the early-70's), and def the godfather of alt rock

RIP

tinkerbell
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Reply #15 posted 10/27/13 3:00pm

Boriqua1130

avatar

sad

========= Rest In Peace dove Mr. Reed ==========

http://www.ftd.com/the-ftd-morning-stars-arrangement

I'll ♥️ "LemonDrop" 2DN 💋 your "Sugar"
Prince: TY! 🌹 🎶🎸🎶 💜 Rex @3/27/18 2D Media Let Prince R.I.P.
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Reply #16 posted 10/27/13 3:01pm

lazycrockett

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This one HURTS.

The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #17 posted 10/27/13 3:14pm

JoeTyler

damn Lou Reed is DEAD folks, DEAD

how can Lou Reed die????

shit confused

tinkerbell
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Reply #18 posted 10/27/13 3:36pm

BobGeorge909

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He'll b on earth for forever in some way...he's had a big voice. Keep on struttin bro.
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Reply #19 posted 10/27/13 3:51pm

Beautifulstarr
123

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Read about it this morning rose

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Reply #20 posted 10/27/13 3:57pm

lazycrockett

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The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #21 posted 10/27/13 4:13pm

lazycrockett

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The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #22 posted 10/27/13 4:17pm

728huey

avatar





cry sad pray rose dove music typing

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Reply #23 posted 10/27/13 4:18pm

MickyDolenz

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You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton
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Reply #24 posted 10/27/13 4:18pm

TD3

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RIP rose

sad

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Reply #25 posted 10/27/13 4:23pm

lazycrockett

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here's a down town fairy singing out "Proud Mary"
as she cruises Christopher Street
And some Southern Queen is acting loud and mean
where the docks and the Badlands meet

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's a Greta Garbo and an Alfred Hitchcock
and some black Jamaican stud
There's five Cinderellas and some leather drags
I almost fell into my mug

There's a Crawford, Davis and a tacky Cary Grant
And some Homeboys lookin' for trouble down here from the Bronx

But there ain't no Hairy and no Virgin Mary
you won't hear those voices again
And Johnny Rio and Rotten Rita
you'll never see those faces again

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's the Born Again Losers and the Lavender Boozers
and some crack team from Washington Heights
The boys from Avenue B and the girls from Avenue D
a Tinkerbell in tights

This celebration somehow get me down
Especially when I see you're not around

There's no Peter Pedantic saying things romantic
In Latin, Greek or Spic
There's no Three bananas or Brandy Alexander
Dishing all their tricks

It's a different feeling that I have today
Especially when I know you've gone away

There's a girl from Soho with a teeshirt saying "I Blow"
She's with the "jive five 2 plus 3"
And the girls for pay dates are giving cut rates
Or else doing it for free

The past keeps knock knock knocking on my door
And I don't want to hear it anymore

No consolations please for feelin' funky
I got to get my head above my knees
But it makes me mad and mad makes me sad
And then I start to freeze

In the back of my mind I was afraid it might be true
In the back of my mind I was afraid that they meant you

The Halloween Parade
At the Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
See you next year - at the Halloween parade

  • Category

  • License

    Standard YouTube License


[Edited 10/27/13 16:26pm]

The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #26 posted 10/27/13 4:44pm

Identity

The whole music industry is in mourning for Lou. It's sounds strange, but today I was humming ''Good Evening Mr. Waldheim'' mere hours before learning of his demise.




[Edited 10/27/13 16:48pm]

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Reply #27 posted 10/27/13 5:04pm

lazycrockett

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The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #28 posted 10/27/13 5:58pm

McJagger

The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" was a wonderful listen.

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Reply #29 posted 10/27/13 6:36pm

JazzyJ

R.I.P. Uncle Lou"The Glory of Love"
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