Lou Reed
Having played guitar and sung in doo-wop groups in high school, Reed studied poetry at Syracuse University under Delmore Schwartz, and served as a radio DJ, hosting a late-night avant garde music program while at college.Reed cleaned up in the early 1980s, and gradually returned to prominence with The Blue Mask (1982) and New Sensations (1984), reaching a critical and commercial career peak with his 1989 album New York.His sister Merrill, born Margaret Reed, said that as an adolescent, he suffered panic attacks, became socially awkward and "possessed a fragile temperament" but was highly focused on things that he liked, mainly music.[9] After participating at a talent show at Freeport Junior High School in early 1958, and receiving an enthusiastic response from the audience,[10] the group was given the chance to record an original single "So Blue" with the B-side "Leave Her for Me" later that year.[6] His sister recalled that during his first year in college, at New York University, he was brought home one day, having had a mental breakdown, after which he remained "depressed, anxious, and socially unresponsive" for a time, and that his parents were having difficulty coping.[6] Upon his recovery from his illness and associated treatment, Reed resumed his education at Syracuse University in 1960,[6] studying journalism, film directing, and creative writing.[20] Reed said that when he started out he was inspired by such musicians as Ornette Coleman, who had "always been a great influence" on him; he said that his guitar on "European Son" was his way of trying to imitate the jazz saxophonist.[31] For Pickwick, Reed also wrote and recorded 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".[35] Had he accomplished nothing else, his work with the Velvet Underground in the late sixties would assure him a place in anyone's rock & roll pantheon; those remarkable songs still serve as an articulate aural nightmare of men and women caught in the beauty and terror of sexual, street and drug paranoia, unwilling or unable to move.The message is that urban life is tough stuff—it will kill you; Reed, the poet of destruction, knows it but never looks away and somehow finds holiness as well as perversity in both his sinners and his quest.Cale's replacement was Boston-based musician Doug Yule, who played bass guitar and keyboards and would soon share lead vocal duties with Reed.Though the jazzy arrangement (courtesy of bassist Herbie Flowers and saxophonist Ronnie Ross) was musically atypical for Reed, it eventually became his signature song.Though they improved over the months, Reed (with producer Bob Ezrin's encouragement) decided to recruit a new backing band in anticipation of the upcoming Berlin album.Reed's late 1973 European tour, featuring lead guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, mixed his Berlin material with older numbers.Described by Rolling Stone as the "tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator",[69] many critics interpreted it as a gesture of contempt, an attempt to break his contract with RCA or to alienate his less sophisticated fans.The album, now regarded as a visionary textural guitar masterpiece by some music critics,[74] was reportedly returned to stores by the thousands and was withdrawn after a few weeks.[75][76] Lou Reed doesn't just write about squalid characters, he allows them to leer and breathe in their own voices, and he colors familiar landscapes through their own eyes.The latter album was enthusiastically received by critics such as Rolling Stone writer Tom Carson, whose review began, "Lou Reed's The Blue Mask is a great record, and its genius is at once so simple and unusual that the only appropriate reaction is wonder.[84] In the early 1980s, Reed worked with guitarists including Chuck Hammer on Growing Up in Public, and Robert Quine on The Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts.In 1998, The New York Times observed that in the 1970s, Reed had a distinctive persona: "Back then he was publicly gay, pretended to shoot heroin onstage, and cultivated a 'Dachau panda' look, with cropped peroxide hair and black circles painted under his eyes.In the same year, he joined Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope short tour and was outspoken about New York City's political issues and personalities.The 1989 album New York, which commented on crime, AIDS, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, then-President of Austria Kurt Waldheim, and Pope John Paul II, became his second gold-certified work when it passed 500,000 sales in 1997.At the ceremony, Reed, Cale and Tucker performed a song titled "Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend", dedicated to Sterling Morrison, who had died the previous August.On October 6, 2001, the New York Times published a Reed poem called "Laurie Sadly Listening" in which he reflects on the September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11).[96] Incorrect reports of Reed's death were broadcast by numerous US radio stations in 2001, caused by a hoax email (purporting to be from Reuters) which said he had died of a drug overdose.[100] In October 2006, Reed appeared at Hal Willner's Leonard Cohen tribute show "Came So Far for Beauty" in Dublin, along with Laurie Anderson, Nick Cave, Anohni, Jarvis Cocker, and Beth Orton.On October 2 and 3, 2008, he introduced his new group, which was later named Metal Machine Trio, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex in Los Angeles.Reed played "Sweet Jane" and "White Light/White Heat" with Metallica at Madison Square Garden during the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on October 30, 2009.[129][130][131] Former Velvet Underground members Moe Tucker[132] and John Cale made statements on Reed's death,[133] and those from outside the music industry paid their respects such as Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi.[151][152] In 2015, in the unofficial biography Notes From The Velvet Underground, biographer Howard Sounes described Reed as having been misogynistic and violent toward women he was in relationships with[153] and racist, having called Donna Summer and Bob Dylan racial[154] and ethnic slurs.
Hop Farm Festival in Paddock Wood , Kent, 2011
Lou Reed (rugby union)Lewis E. ReedArlene Schnitzer Concert HallPortland, OregonFreeport, New YorkEast Hampton, New Yorkart rockproto-punkglam rocknoise rockLou Reed discographyPickwickCotillionAristaWarner Bros.The Velvet UndergroundMetal Machine TrioLaurie Andersonundergroundalternative rocktransgressivedoo-wopSyracuse UniversityDelmore Schwartzradio DJavant garde musicPickwick Recordssound-alikeJohn CaleSterling MorrisonAngus MacLiseAndy WarholThe Factoryfirst albumMoe TuckerTransformerDavid BowieMick RonsonWalk on the Wild SideBerlinUK Albums ChartRock 'n' Roll AnimalSally Can't DanceBillboard 200The Blue MaskNew SensationsNew YorkSongs for DrellaMagic and LossThe RavenMetallicaliver diseaseRock and Roll Hall of FameBrookdaleBrooklynFreeportRussian Jewspanic attacksrock and rollrhythm and bluesdyslexicKing CurtisBob ShadMurray the KNew York Universitymental breakdownelectroconvulsive therapyhomophobicplatoon leaderCecil Taylorfree jazzOrnette ColemanEuropean SonSyracuseGarland JeffreyshepatitisGreat American NovelCity University of New YorkCollege of Arts and Sciencescum laudeLa Monte YoungTheatre of Eternal MusicTony ConradWalter De Mariaostrich guitaravant-gardeHeroinLower East SideSummit High SchoolSummit, New JerseyselloutRolling StoneExploding Plastic InevitablechanteuseThe Velvet Underground & NicoBrian EnoVáclav HavelCzechoslovakiaWhite Light/White HeatSteve SesnickBostonDoug YuleLoadedSqueezeLong IslandAnthology EditionsRCA RecordsMorgan StudiosWillesdenSteve HoweRick WakemanLou ReedStephen HoldenMick JaggerBob DylanHolly WoodlawnCandy Darling"Little Joe" DallesandroJoe CampbellJackie CurtisHerbie FlowersRonnie RossNelson Algrennovel of the same nameBillboard Hot 100Perfect Day