Lou Reed

From Brooklyn to the Velvet Underground

Lewis Allan Reed was born on 2 March 1942 in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, on Long Island. At Syracuse University he studied under the poet Delmore Schwartz and graduated in English in 1964. That year he moved to New York to write songs for Pickwick Records. In 1965 he formed the Velvet Underground with John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise. MacLise quit over the band's first paid gig, at a high school in New Jersey, and Moe Tucker replaced him. Andy Warhol became their manager, and the first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, appeared in March 1967. Reed left in August 1970 and spent a spell as a typist at his father's tax accounting firm.

Transformer

In 1971 Reed signed with RCA. His first solo album, Lou Reed, was made in London and did not sell well. For the next one he turned to David Bowie and Mick Ronson, who produced Transformer at Trident Studios in London in August 1972. Four of its eleven songs dated from his Velvet Underground years. Released on 8 November 1972, it reached 13 in Britain and 29 in the United States.

Walk on the Wild Side, a set of portraits of Warhol's Factory regulars with a baritone saxophone solo by Ronnie Ross, was his only entry in the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at 16. Perfect Day carried a string arrangement by Ronson. Satellite of Love was the second single, and Vicious grew out of a remark by Warhol about hitting someone with a flower. Pitchfork later judged the record one of the finest moments of both glam rock and Reed's own career.

Berlin and the live years

Producer Bob Ezrin had noticed that Reed's stories began well but never ended, and asked what became of the couple in "Berlin", a song from the first solo record. The answer was Berlin, released in October 1973: a concept album about Jim and Caroline, with Steve Winwood, Jack Bruce, Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker among the players. Early reviews were mixed, and Rolling Stone called it a disaster, and it reached 98 in the United States, though 7 in Britain. Reed said later that he had always liked it. In December 2006 he staged it at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, and Julian Schnabel filmed the concerts.

Soon after Berlin came Rock 'n' Roll Animal, recorded at the Academy of Music in New York on 21 December 1973 with the guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner. It reached 45 in the United States and went gold in 1978. Sally Can't Dance, released in August 1974, climbed to 10 on the Billboard 200.

Noise and Street Hassle

Metal Machine Music arrived in July 1975, a double album of feedback with no songs, and RCA withdrew it within three weeks. Reviewing it again in 2017, Mark Richardson of Pitchfork wrote that Reed made it alone in his Manhattan loft, with a couple of amps, guitars in open tunings, a few microphones and a tape machine. Street Hassle followed in February 1978 on Arista. It was recorded binaurally, and its title suite includes a line sung by Bruce Springsteen, who went uncredited in the liner notes.

New York and after

After The Blue Mask in 1982, Reed released New York on Sire in January 1989. He recorded it at Mediasound in New York with Fred Maher as co-producer. Its single Dirty Blvd. spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and NME placed the album third on its list for the year. In 1990 he and Cale made Songs for Drella about Warhol, and Magic and Loss, in January 1992, became his highest-charting album in Britain at number 6.

The Velvet Underground entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and a BBC all-star version of Perfect Day, with Reed among the singers, topped the British chart in 1997. In 2011 he and Metallica released Lulu. Reed died on 27 October 2013. Patti Smith inducted him into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2015. When New York was reissued in a deluxe set in 2020, Pitchfork's Daniel Felsenthal called it a record of unmistakable conviction.