Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, lead singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Although not commercially successful during its existence, the Velvet Underground came to be regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic and transgressive lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.
Reed began his musical career in 1964 as a pop songwriter for Pickwick Records. Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Angus MacLise formed the Velvet Underground in 1965. After building a reputation in the avant garde music scene, the Velvet Underground gained the attention of Andy Warhol, who became the band's manager. The Velvet Underground became something of a fixture at The Factory, Warhol's art studio, and served as his "house band" for various projects. The band released its first album, now with drummer Moe Tucker and featuring German singer Nico, in 1967, and parted ways with Warhol shortly thereafter. Following several lineup changes and three further albums, Reed quit the band in 1970.
After leaving the Velvet Underground, Reed embarked on a successful solo career, releasing twenty solo studio albums. His second album, Transformer (1972), was produced by David Bowie and arranged by Mick Ronson; it brought him mainstream recognition. The album is considered an influential landmark of the glam rock genre, anchored by Reed's most successful single, "Walk on the Wild Side". The less commercial but critically acclaimed Berlin peaked at No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart. Rock 'n' Roll Animal (a live album released in 1974) sold strongly, and Sally Can't Dance (1974) peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200. When Reed's work ceased to sell well, his drug addiction and alcoholism intensified. Reed achieved sobriety in the early 1980s, gradually returning to prominence with The Blue Mask (1982) and New Sensations (1984). He reached a critical and commercial career peak with his 1989 album New York.
Reed participated in the re-formation of the Velvet Underground in the 1990s. He also made several more albums, including Songs for Drella (1990), a song cycle about Warhol made in collaboration with Cale. Magic and Loss (1992) would become Reed's highest-charting album on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 6. He contributed music to two theatrical interpretations of 19th-century writers, one of which he developed into an album titled The Raven. Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996 and as a solo artist in 2015.
Biography 1942–1957: Early life Lewis Allan Reed was born on March 2, 1942, at Beth-El Hospital (now Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center) in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in suburban Freeport, New York, on Long Island where he felt isolated and was bullied at school. Reed was the son of Toby (née Futterman) (1920–2013) and Sidney Joseph Reed (1913–2005), an accountant. His family was Jewish; his grandparents were Russian and Polish Jews who had immigrated to the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, fleeing antisemitism; his father had changed his surname from Rabinowitz to Reed.
Reed attended Atkinson Elementary School in Freeport and went on to Freeport Junior High School. 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. Having learned to play the guitar from the radio, he developed an early interest in rock and roll and rhythm and blues music, and played in several garage bands while in high school.
Reed was dyslexic. He began using drugs at the age of 16.
1958–1964: Early recordings and education
Reed's first recording was as a member of a doo-wop trio called the Jades, with Reed providing guitar accompaniment and backing vocals. After participating in a talent show at Freeport Junior High School in early 1958 and receiving an enthusiastic response from the audience, the group was given the chance to record an original single, "So Blue" / "Leave Her for Me", later that year. While the single did not chart, notable saxophonist King Curtis was brought in as a session musician by the producer Bob Shad to play on both songs, and the single was played by a substitute DJ during the Murray the K radio show, which gave Reed his first-ever airplay. Reed's love for playing music and his desire to play gigs brought him into confrontation with his anxious and unaccommodating parents.
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. Visiting a psychologist, Reed's parents were made to feel guilty as inadequate parents, and they consented to giving him electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Reed appeared to blame his father for the treatment to which he had been subjected. He wrote about the experience in his song "Kill Your Sons" from the album Sally Can't Dance (1974). Reed recalled the experience as having been traumatic and leading to memory loss. He believed that he was treated in this fashion to dispel his homosexual feelings; after Reed's death, his sister denied this, asserting that their parents were not homophobic but had been told by his doctors that ECT was necessary to treat his mental and behavioral issues.
Upon his recovery from his illness and associated treatment, Reed resumed his education at Syracuse University in 1960, studying journalism, film directing, and creative writing. He was a platoon leader in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps; he said he was later expelled from the program for holding an unloaded gun to his superior's head.
Reed played music on campus under numerous band names (one being L.A. and the Eldorados) and played throughout Central New York. Per his bandmates, they were routinely kicked out of fraternity parties for their brash personalities and insistence on performing their own material. In 1961, he began hosting a late-night radio program on WAER called Excursions on a Wobbly Rail. Named after a song by jazz pianist Cecil Taylor from his 1959 album Looking Ahead!, the program typically featured doo-wop, rhythm and blues, and jazz, particularly the free jazz developed in the mid-1950s. Reed said that when he started out he was inspired by free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, who had "always been a great influence" on him; he said that his guitar playing on the Velvet Underground track "European Son" was his way of trying to imitate Coleman.
Reed's sister said that during her brother's time at Syracuse University, the university authorities had tried unsuccessfully to expel him because they did not approve of his extracurricular activities. At Syracuse, he studied under poet Delmore Schwartz, who he said was "the first great person I ever met", and they became friends. He credited Schwartz with showing him how "with the simplest language imaginable, and very short, you can accomplish the most astonishing heights.""Rock and Roll Heart", documentary on the life of Lou Reed, American Masters One of Reed's fellow students at Syracuse in the early 1960s (who also studied under Schwartz) was the musician Garland Jeffreys; they remained close friends until the end of Reed's life.
Jeffreys recalled Reed's time at Syracuse: "At four in the afternoon we'd all meet at [the bar] The Orange Grove. Me, Delmore and Lou. That would often be the center of the crew. And Delmore was the leader – our quiet leader." While at Syracuse, Reed was also introduced to intravenous drug use for the first time, and quickly contracted hepatitis. Reed later dedicated the song "European Son", from the first Velvet Underground album, to Schwartz. In 1982, Reed recorded "My House" from his album The Blue Mask as a tribute to his late mentor. He later said that his goals as a writer were "to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music" or to write the Great American Novel in a record album.Interview in Rolling Stone Nov/Dec 1987: Twentieth Anniversary Issue. Reed met Sterling Morrison, an English student at the City University of New York, while the latter was visiting mutual friend Jim Tucker at Syracuse. Reed graduated from Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences with a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in English in June 1964.
1964–1970: Pickwick and the Velvet Underground
Reed moved to New York City in 1964 to work as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. He can be heard singing lead on two cuts on The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook. 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". His employers felt that the song had hit potential, and assembled a supporting band to help promote the recording. The ad hoc band, called the Primitives, consisted of Reed; Welsh musician John Cale, who had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, on bass; Tony Conrad, violinist in the Theatre of Eternal Music, on guitar; and sculptor Walter De Maria on percussion. Cale and Conrad were surprised to find that for "The Ostrich", Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same note, which they began to call "ostrich guitar" tuning. This technique created a drone effect similar to their experimentation in Young's avant-garde ensemble. Though disappointed with Reed's performance in the Primitives, Cale was nevertheless impressed by Reed's early repertoire (including "Heroin"), and a partnership began to evolve.
Reed and Cale (who played viola, keyboards, and bass guitar) lived together on the Lower East Side, and invited Reed's college acquaintance Sterling Morrison and Cale's neighbor and Theatre of Eternal Music bandmate Angus MacLise to join the band on guitar and drums respectively, thus forming the Velvet Underground. When the opportunity came to play their first paying gig at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey, MacLise quit because he believed that accepting money for art was selling out. He was replaced by Moe Tucker, the sister of Reed and Morrison's mutual friend Jim Tucker. Initially a fill-in for that one show, she soon became a full-time member with her drumming an integral part of the band's sound, despite Cale's initial objections to having a female drummer. Though the Velvet Underground had little commercial success in their time, the band is considered one of the most influential in rock history. Reed was the main singer and songwriter in the band.
The band soon came to the attention of Andy Warhol, who became their manager. One of Warhol's first contributions was to integrate them into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events. Warhol's associates at the Factory inspired many of Reed's songs as he fell into a thriving, multifaceted artistic scene. Reed rarely gave an interview without paying homage to Warhol as a mentor. Warhol also pushed the band to work with the German former model and singer Nico. Despite his initial resistance, Reed wrote several songs for Nico to sing, and the two were briefly lovers.