Lou Reed

Few rock musicians exerted as profound an influence while rarely attaining genuine superstardom as Lou Reed. Between his exit from the Velvet Underground in 1970 and his death from liver disease in 2013, he enjoyed fleeting brushes with broad commercial acceptance yet spent most of his career commanding a devoted cult audience whose occasional swells into wider recognition proved temporary. His lyrics, marked by literary sophistication and a readiness to explore subjects that defied societal norms around drugs and sexuality, opened pathways later artists pursued, while his confrontational stance toward listeners positioned him as an essential forerunner to the punk upheaval of the mid- and late 1970s. He frequently described his ambition as bringing the liberty and imaginative spirit of literature into rock music. Though never primarily recognized for his guitar work, the vigorous drive of his rhythm parts and the raw, textured quality of his solos and leads earned admiration from players who prized intensity and expression above technical precision. Across his recorded output he traversed an unusually wide stylistic range, encompassing the introspective singer/songwriter approach of Lou Reed, the glam textures of Transformer, the art-rock scope of Berlin, the hard-rock energy of Rock N' Roll Animal, the pure noise of Metal Machine Music, the confessional proto-punk of Street Hassle, the jazz-tinged rock of The Bells, the buoyant pop/rock of New Sensations, the social commentary of New York, and the ambitious literary adaptations of The Raven. Despite these shifts, his distinctive voice remained unmistakable, shaped by an unshakeable downtown detachment and a characteristically bleak perspective.

Lewis Allan Reed entered the world on March 2, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York. When he turned nine the family relocated to Freehold on Long Island, where he struggled to adjust; by junior high he had become a frequent target of bullies. Anxiety and phobias mounted, and at sixteen he began trying drugs. Following a psychiatrist’s recommendation, his parents arranged electroconvulsive therapy; decades afterward he addressed its lasting damage in the song “Kill Your Sons.”

Music offered refuge. Reed absorbed early rock & roll, doo wop, rhythm & blues, and jazz, and while still in high school he joined bands and performed for pay. One early outfit, the Jades, issued a single at his age of sixteen—“So Blue” backed with “Leave Her for Me”—on which he played guitar and supplied backing vocals; King Curtis contributed saxophone. The record vanished without trace and remained their sole release, yet Reed continued composing. In 1962, while enrolled at Syracuse University, he recorded “Merry Go Round” and “Your Love” for producer Bob Shad, who had earlier released the Jades single. Those sides stayed unreleased until Norton Records compiled them with the Jades track on the 2000 EP All Tomorrow’s Dance Parties. After leaving Syracuse, Reed settled in New York and accepted employment at Pickwick Records, a label known for inexpensive compilations. To flesh out such albums he generated songs tailored to prevailing trends; one result was the abrasive dance-oriented “The Ostrich,” distinguished by its guitar tuned uniformly across all strings. Pickwick issued the track as a single credited to the Primitives and arranged promotional appearances. While assembling musicians for those dates Reed encountered Welsh musician John Cale, who had arrived in New York on an Aaron Copland scholarship and was performing drone-based pieces with LaMonte Young. Cale showed little enthusiasm for “The Ostrich” itself yet recognized that Reed’s alternate tuning matched his own drone technique, and when Reed sought to assemble a group for material outside Pickwick’s commercial scope, Cale agreed to participate.

Reed brought in Syracuse acquaintance Sterling Morrison on guitar; Cale handled bass and viola while Reed sang and played guitar. After a brief stint with percussionist Angus MacLise, the quartet added Maureen Tucker on drums. They took their name, the Velvet Underground, from a paperback about sexual mores discovered on the street. Andy Warhol discovered them in 1966, became their manager, and integrated them into his multimedia spectacle the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Their raw yet exploratory sound and lyrics that confronted sex, narcotics, and modern existence made them one of the era’s most divisive acts. They issued four studio albums—The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967, White Light/White Heat with Cale in 1968, The Velvet Underground in 1969, and Loaded featuring Doug Yule in 1970—that sold modestly yet later achieved classic status. During the summer of 1970, while cutting Loaded, the band held a residency at Max’s Kansas City; weary of internal pressures and commercial indifference, Reed quietly departed in August. Although Doug Yule–led versions continued until 1973, most listeners regard Reed’s exit as the group’s effective conclusion.

Uncertain of his next direction, Reed returned to Long Island, living with his parents and working as a typist at his father’s accounting firm. By 1971 he secured a contract with RCA Records and traveled to London to record his self-titled debut with Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman of Yes. That album largely recycled Velvet Underground compositions that had never appeared, attracting scant attention. Greater success arrived with the follow-up. David Bowie, then ascending after The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and a longtime Velvet Underground admirer, joined Spiders guitarist Mick Ronson to produce 1972’s Transformer. Under Bowie’s guidance Reed adopted glam aesthetics and delivered a stronger, commercially viable record. “Walk on the Wild Side” became an international hit single, while “Perfect Day” gradually emerged as one of his most cherished songs. Capitalizing on that momentum, Reed convinced RCA to finance a more ambitious project. The opulent, elaborately arranged Berlin, released in 1973, presented a song cycle about a doomed relationship, yet its unrelieved bleakness alienated recent converts and resulted in commercial failure.

Determined to regain favor, Reed formed a new band built around guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter and restricted himself to vocals. The ensemble recast his material as accessible hard rock; the 1974 live album Rock N' Roll Animal showcased the songs’ strength in that format and achieved solid sales. Extensive touring followed, and later that year Reed issued Sally Can’t Dance, a collection of uneven glam-inflected tracks whose only standout was the raw, autobiographical “Kill Your Sons.” Despite its weaknesses the album became his highest-charting release to that point. The next studio effort, 1975’s Metal Machine Music, consisted of unyielding guitar noise that baffled and repelled most listeners, widely viewed as an act of deliberate provocation. Reed reversed course with 1976’s Coney Island Baby, whose title track and most other songs offered warm, reflective rock & roll steeped in the doo wop he had loved as a teenager, aside from the disquieting “Kicks.”

Coney Island Baby ended Reed’s RCA tenure. He moved to Clive Davis’s Arista label for 1976’s Rock and Roll Heart, an amiable yet undistinguished set that drew minimal notice. The concurrent emergence of punk, however, repeatedly cited Reed—particularly his Velvet Underground work—as a foundational influence, emboldening him to record 1978’s Street Hassle. That caustic, deliberately provocative album examined his own history with unflinching candor. Though too abrasive for mainstream acceptance, it garnered strong critical response and signaled renewed artistic focus. While 1978’s Live: Take No Prisoners emphasized Reed’s barbed between-song commentary, The Bells (1979) and Growing Up in Public (1980) addressed personal themes with increasing maturity. Growing Up in Public concluded his Arista contract at a moment when Reed finally conquered long-standing addictions, married Sylvia Morales after years of identifying publicly as gay or bisexual, and relocated from Manhattan to a farmhouse in New Jersey. There he began collaborating with guitarist Robert Quine, whose encouragement led Reed to resume electric guitar playing. After signing again with RCA they completed The Blue Mask, an intense, candid, and articulate record widely regarded as his strongest in years.

Reed and Quine reunited for 1983’s Legendary Hearts, another critical success, yet Reed excluded Quine from 1984’s New Sensations, overdubbing all guitar parts himself. The album’s relatively optimistic tone yielded the minor hit “I Love You Suzanne.” For the first time since achieving sobriety Reed toured extensively, with Quine back in the band; a concert from that tour appeared as Live in Italy. He again handled all guitars on 1986’s Mistrial, an uneven effort that closed his second RCA period. Signing with Sire Records, Reed rebounded with 1989’s New York, a politically charged portrait of his hometown that earned widespread acclaim and gold certification. Its closing track, “Dime Store Mystery,” served as a tribute to Andy Warhol. Warhol’s death also prompted reconciliation with John Cale, ending years of estrangement since Reed’s departure from the Velvet Underground. The pair created a song cycle about Warhol’s life, resulting in 1990’s Songs for Drella—their first joint recording since White Light/White Heat. Later that year they performed the work at a Cartier Foundation event in Jouy-En-Josas, France. Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker attended, and as an encore the original four members delivered an impromptu “Heroin.”

1992’s Magic and Loss, a somber meditation on the deaths of two close friends, received favorable notices yet failed to match New York’s commercial or critical impact. Following the spontaneous French performance, rumors of a full Velvet Underground reunion circulated. In June and July 1993 the band toured Europe to enthusiastic audience response, though critics were divided. Planned American dates and an MTV Unplugged appearance collapsed amid renewed tensions; by the release of Live MCMXCIII the following October the reunion had dissolved permanently. Sterling Morrison’s death in 1995 sealed that outcome. In 1996 the Velvets were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Reed, Cale, and Tucker performing the Morrison tribute “Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend.” Reed and Sylvia Morales divorced shortly after the European tour.

Reed resumed solo activity with 1996’s Set the Twilight Reeling, an album centered on relational joys and difficulties that coincided with the beginning of his relationship with performance artist Laurie Anderson. They married in 2008 and remained together until his death. A largely acoustic 1997 Meltdown Festival set in London was documented on 1998’s Perfect Night: Live in London. That same year PBS broadcast the American Masters documentary Lou Reed: Rock & Roll Heart, later issued on video. Reed also collaborated with director Robert Wilson on the theatrical work Timerocker, contributing original songs. In 2000 he moved to Reprise Records and released Ecstasy, a lyrically demanding collection set against abrasive guitars. A second Wilson collaboration, POE-try, drew on Edgar Allan Poe; much of that material reappeared on 2003’s The Raven, which incorporated spoken contributions from Willem Dafoe and Steve Buscemi. An intimate tour yielded the 2004 live album Animal Serenade, recorded at Los Angeles’s Wiltern Theater.

Between 2006 and 2007 Reed revisited Berlin in concert, performing the album in its entirety with Bob Ezrin conducting a chamber orchestra. Shows at St. Ann’s Warehouse were filmed and released as Berlin: Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2008. He also revisited Metal Machine Music when the Zeitkratzer ensemble arranged its soundscapes for live performance; Reed and Mike Rathke joined several presentations, one of which appeared as Metal Machine Music: Live at the Berlin Opera House. In 2007 Reed issued Hudson River Wind Meditations, a set of ambient pieces composed to accompany his tai chi practice. At the 2009 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame anniversary concert in New York he performed with Metallica, an encounter that prompted their full collaboration on 2011’s Lulu. Based on Frank Wedekind’s writings, the album’s aggressive, uncompromising character drew largely negative reviews and alienated fans of both Reed and Metallica. A supporting tour never materialized. In 2012 Reed, previously treated for hepatitis, received a diagnosis of advanced liver disease. He underwent transplant surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in April 2013 and initially expressed optimism about resuming work, yet he died of end-stage liver disease at his East Hampton home shared with Anderson in late October. In September 2020 Rhino Records released an expanded edition of New York containing remastered tracks, rough mixes, work tapes, alternate versions, and a complete 1989 live performance.

While examining Reed’s papers with Laurie Anderson’s cooperation, archivists Don Fleming and Jason Stern discovered an unopened package Reed had mailed to himself in 1965. Inside was a five-inch tape reel of rough song sketches he had sent as a “poor man’s copyright,” including material later recorded with the Velvet Underground and previously unknown compositions, some featuring John Cale. Anderson worked with Light in the Attic Records to issue the recordings as Words & Music, May 1965 in September 2022; the label and the Lou Reed Archives announced it as the first installment in a series drawn from his extensive unreleased archives.