Lewis “Lou” Allan Reed (born March 2, 1942) is an American
rock musician, songwriter and photographer. He is best known as guitarist,
vocalist and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his solo
career which has spanned several decades. Though the Velvet Underground were a commercial
failure in the late 1960s, the group has gained a considerable cult following
in the years since its demise and has gone on to become one of the most widely
cited and influential bands of the era. As the Velvet Underground’s vocalist
and principal songwriter, Reed wrote about subjects of personal experience that
rarely had been examined so openly in rock-and-roll, including sexuality and
drug culture.
After his departure from the group, Reed began a solo career
in 1972. He had a hit the following year with “Walk on the Wild Side.” In 1975
Reed released a double-album of feedback loops, Metal Machine Music, upon which
he later commented, “No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and
survive.” Reed is known for his distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics and
for pioneering and coining the term Ostrich
guitar. In 2008 Reed married performance artist Laurie Anderson.
History
Lou Reed was born at Beth El Hospital (now Brookdale) in
Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, Long Island. Contrary to some sources, his
birth name was Lewis Allan Reed, not Louis Firbanks, a name that was coined as
a joke by Lester Bangs in Creem magazine. Reed is the son of Toby (née
Futterman) and Sidney Joseph Reed, an accountant. His family was Jewish. Having
learned to play the guitar from the radio, he developed an early interest in
rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues, and during high-school played in a number
of bands. His first recording was as a member of a doo-wop style group called
The Jades. In 1956, Reed, who is bisexual, received electroconvulsive therapy
as a teenager, which was intended to cure his bisexuality; he wrote about the
experience in his 1974 song, “Kill Your Sons.” In an interview, Reed said of
the experience:
“They put the thing down your
throat so you don’t swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head.
That’s what was recommended in Rockland County to discourage homosexual
feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You
can’t read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page
one again.”
-
Lou Reed quoted in Please Kill Me (1996)
Reed began attending Syracuse University in the fall of
1960, studying journalism, film directing and creative writing. In 1961 he
began hosting a late-night radio show on WAER called “Excursions On A Wobbly
Rail." Named after a song by pianist Cecil Taylor, the program featured
doo wop, rhythm and blues and jazz, particularly the free jazz developed in the
mid-1950s. Many of Reed’s guitar techniques, such as the guitar-drum roll, were
inspired by jazz saxophinists, notably Ornette Coleman. Reed graduated from
Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences with a B.A. in June 1964.
Poet Delmore Schwartz taught at Syracuse University and befriended Reed, who in
1966 dedicated the song ‘European Son,” from the Velvet Underground’s debut
album The Velvet Underground & Nico,
to Schwartz. In 1982, Reed recorded “My House” as a tribute to his late mentor.
He later saif that his goals was a writer were “to bring the sensitivities of
the novel to rock music” or to write the Great American Novel in a record form.
Professional Career
Pickwick Records – In 1964, Reed moved to New York City and
began working as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. In 1964, he
scored a minor hit with the single “The Ostrich,” a parody of popular dance
songs of the time, which included lines such as “put your head on the floor and
have somebody step on it.” His employers felt that the song had hit potential
and arranged for a band to be assembled around Reed to promote the recording.
The ad hoc group called “The Primitives” included Welsh musician John Cale, who
had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer
La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music along with Tony Conrad. Cale an
Conrad were both surprised to find that for “The Ostrich,” Reed tuned each
string of his guitar to the same note. This technique created a drone effect
similar to their experimentation in Young’s avant-garde ensemble. Disappointed
with Reed’s performance, Cale nevertheless impressed by Reed’s early repertoire
(including “Heroin), and a partnership began to evolve.
The Velvet Underground – Lou Reed and John Cale lived
together on the Lower East Side and eventually invited Lou’s college friends,
Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker, to join the Velvet Underground. Even
though Cale left the Band in 1968 and Reed followed in 1970, the Velvet
Underground has a long-standing reputation as one of the most influential bands
in rock history.
The group soon caught the attention of artist Andy Warhol.
One of Warhol’s first contributions was to integrate them into the Exploding
Plastic Inevitable. Warhol’s associates inspired many of Reed’s songs as he
fell into a thriving, multifaceted artistic scene. Reed rarely gives an
interview without paying homage to Warhol as a mentor. Conflict emerged when
Warhol had an idea for the group to take on a chanteuse, the European former
model and singer, Nico. Reed and the others registered their objection by
titling their debut album The Velvet
Underground & Nico to imply that Nico was not accepted as a member of
the group. Despite his initial resistance, Reed wrote several songs for Nico to
sing, and the two were briefly lovers (as were Nico and Cale later). The Velvet Underground & Nico
reached No. 171 on the charts. Today, however, it is considered one of the most
influential rock albums ever recorded. Rolling
Stone has it listed as the 13th most influential album of all
time. Brian Eno once famously stated that although few people bought the album,
most of those who did were inspired to form their own band.
By the time the band recorded White Light/White Heat, Nico had quit and Warhol was fired, both
against Cale’s wishes. Warhol’s replacement as manager, Steve Sesnick,
convinced Reed to drive Cale out of the band. Morrison and Tucker were disconcerted
by Reed’s tactics but continued with the group. Cale’s replacement was Doug
Yule, whom Reed would often facetiously introduce as his younger brother. The
group now took on a more pop-oriented sound and acted more as a vehicle for
Reed to develop his songwriting craft. The group released two albums with this
lineup: 1969’s The Velvet Underground
and 1970’s Loaded. The latter
included two of the group’s most commercially successful songs, “Rock and Roll”
and “Sweet Jane.” Reed left the Velvet Underground in August 1970 and the band disintegrated
as core members Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker departed in 1971 and 1972
respectively. Yule continued until early 1973, and the band released one more
studio album, Squeeze, under the Velvet Underground name. After the band’s
move to Atlantic Record’s Cotillion label, their new manager pushed Reed to
change the subject matter of his songs to lighter topics in hopes of commercial
success. The band’s album Loaded had
taken more time to record than the previous three albums together, but had not
broken the band through to a wider audience. Reed briefly retired to his
parents’ home on Long Island.
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