Lou Reed

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Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and poet.

He was the rhythm/lead guitarist, guitarist, and principal songwriter for the rock band The Velvet Underground, and had a solo career that spanned five decades.

The Velvet Underground was not a commercial success during its existence, but it became one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed released 20 solo studio albums after leaving the band in 1970.

Transformer (1972), David Bowie's second son, and Mick Ronson's arranged by Mick Ronson, gained mainstream attention.

Berlin's less commercial side dominated the market after Transformers, taking first place at No. 2 on Sunday. The UK Albums Chart ranks 7th on the UK Albums Chart.

Rock 'n' Roll Animal (a live album released in 1974) did well, and Sally Can't Dance (1974), which is the highest-ranking song on the list, reached No. 1 in the country. Reed's work did not translate into sales for a long time after, leading him further into heroin use and alcoholism; the Billboard 200 is ranked tenth;

Reed recovered from prominence in the early 1980s and 1990s with New Sensations (1984), reaching a critical and commercial career peak with his 1989 album New York. Reed appeared in the revival of the Velvet Underground in the 1990s and released several more albums, including a tribute to their former mentor Andy Warhol.

Magic and Loss (1992) will be Reed's most charted album on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 121. 6. He contributed to two dramatic interpretations of 19th century writers, one of which he turned into an album titled The Raven.

Laurie Anderson, his third wife, and Metallica's collaboration album Lulu was released in 2008.

He died of liver disease in 2013 in a young man.

Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were all trademarks during his long career.

Reed has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996 and as a solo act in 2015.

1942–57: Early life

Lewis Allan Reed was born in 1942 at Beth-El Hospital (later Brookdale) in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, Long Island. Reed was Toby's uncle (1920–2013) and Sidney Joseph Reed (1913–2005), an accountant. His family was Jewish and his grandparents were Russian Jews who had rejected antisemitism; his father had changed his name from Rabinowitz to Reed; his grandparents were Russian Jews who had escaped antisemitism. Reed said that although he was Jewish, his "true god was rock 'n' roll."

Reed transferred from Atkinson Elementary School in Freeport to Freeport Junior High School. Merrill, a boy from Margaret Reed, said he became socially awkward and "possessed a fragile temperament" as an adolescent, but he was mainly focused on things that he loved, mainly music. He started early in life learning to play the guitar from the radio, and in high school, he performed in several bands.

At the age of 16, he beganexperimenting with drugs.

Reed was dyslexic.

Reed's first appearance as a member of the Jades, a doo-wop three-piece band, with Reed providing guitar accompaniment and singing backing vocals. The group was offered the opportunity to record an original single "So Blue" with the B-side "Leave Her for Me" later this year after being at a talent show at Freeport Junior High School in early 1958 and receiving a swarm of supporters. Though the single didn't chart, respected saxophonist King Curtis was brought in as a session musician by Bob Shad, and during the Murray the K radio show, which gave Reed his first-ever airplay. Reed's passion for playing music and his desire to perform live shows brought him into conflict with his tense and unaccommodious parents.

During his first year in college, his brother was rushed home one day after suffering a mental breakdown, became "depressed, anxious, and socially unresponsive" for a few days, and his parents were having trouble dealing. Reed's parents were made to feel guilty of being ineffective parents, and they consented to Lou electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Reed continued to blame his father for the hospitalization to which he had been exposed. He retold his tale, "Kill Your Sons" from the album Sally Can't Dance (1974), in which he relates the experience. Reed later described the experience as being intense and contributing to memory loss. He said he was treated to debunk his anti-gay sentiments. Reed's sister denied the ECT therapies were intended to curb his "homosexual urges," saying that his parents were not homophobic, but that ECT was required to address Reed's mental and behavioral disorders.

Reed resumed his studies at Syracuse University in 1960, writing about journalism, film directing, and creative writing after recovering from his illness and related treatments. He was a platoon leader in ROTC, but he was later kicked from the program for carrying an unloaded firearms gun to his superior's head.

Reed performed under various band names (one being 'L.A.') on campus. The Eldorados' and the Eldorados') and the Eldorados' played all over Central New York. They were inevitably kicked out of fraternity parties for their brash personalities and insistence on producing their own material, according to his bandmates. Excursions on a Wobbly Rail began in 1961, and he hosted a late-night radio show on WAER called Excursions. The program, named after a song by pianist Cecil Taylor, featured doo wop, rhythm and blues, and jazz, particularly the free jazz, which flourished in the mid-1950s. Reed said that when he first began playing, he was inspired by musicians like Ornette Coleman, who had "always had a huge influence" on him; he said that his guitar on "European Son" was his way of imitating the jazz saxophonist. During Reed's time at Syracuse, the university authorities had attempted unsuccessfully to exclude him because they did not accept his extracurricular activities. He studied at Syracuse University under poet Delmore Schwartz, who he described as "the first great person I've ever met," and the two became close friends. Schwartz praised him for demonstrating how "the simplest words imaginable" can be used, and "very short, you can achieve the most amazing heights." Garland Jeffreys, one of Reed's classmates at Syracuse in the early 1960s (who also studied under Schwartz), remained close friends until the end of Reed's life.

"We'd all gather at [the bar] The Orange Grove at four p.m. in the afternoon," Reed recalled during Reed's time in Syracuse. Me, Delmore, and Lou. It would often be the crew's center. And Delmore was the king – our quiet king." Reed was also introduced to intravenous drug use for the first time, causing acute hepatitis while on campus, and quickly developed hepatitis. From the first Velvet Underground album to Schwartz, Reed dedicated "European Son" to the song "European Son." Reed released "My House" from his album The Blue Mask in 1982 as a nod to his late mentor. He later said that his writing ambitions were "to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music" or that the Great American Novel in a record book. Reed met Sterling Morrison, a freshman at City University of New York, while the latter was visiting a mutual friend and fellow Syracuse student Jim Tucker. Reed received a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree from Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. In June 1964, cum lauded in England.

Reed moved to New York City in 1964 to work as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. On two cuts of The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook can be seen with him. Reed also produced and performed "The Ostrich," a parody of popular dance songs of the time, with lines such as "put your head on the ground and have someone step on it." His managers were convinced that the album had achieved its potential, and they recruited a support band to help promote the album. The Primitives is a British musician who had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music. Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same pitch, causing Cale and Conrad to call his "ostrich guitar" tuning. With this technique, a drone effect was similar to that of Young's avant-garde ensemble experimentation. Cale was still impressed by Reed's early repertoire (including "Heroin"), and the relationship began to develop, despite being dissatisfied with Reed's results.

Reed and Cale (who played viola, keys, and bass guitar) lived together on the Lower East Side, and Reed's college acquaintance guitarist Sterling Morrison and Cale's neighbor drummer Angus MacLise were invited to join the band, thus forming the Velvet Underground. MacLise resigned after being offered a scholarship for art was a loser and did not want to be involved in a regulated industry when they had the opportunity to perform their first paying gig at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey, because he felt that accepting money for art was a loser and didn't want to participate in a structured industry. Moe Tucker, the sister of Reed and Morrison's mutual friend Jim Tucker, was replaced on drums by him. Initially a fill-in for a one-show, she soon became a full member with her drumming a vital piece of the band's sound, despite Cale's initial reservations. Despite having minimal commercial success, the band is considered one of rock history's most influential. Reed, the band's main singer and songwriter, was Reed.

Andy Warhol's band soon caught Andy Warhol's attention. One of Warhol's first contributions was to convert them into the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. As he entered a burgeoning, multifaceted cultural scene, Warhol's associates inspired some of Reed's songs. Reed rarely gave an interview without thanking Warhol as a mentor. Warhol compelled the band to perform a chanteuse, the German former model and singer Nico. Reed wrote several songs for Nico to sing, and the two were briefly lovers, despite his initial resistance.

The Velvet Underground & Nico was first introduced in March 1967 and reached the top of the charts. The United States is 171 on the United States. Billboard 200. Rolling Stone named it as the 13th greatest album of all time, although Brian Eno once claimed that although few people bought the album, the majority of them were inspired to form their own bands. Václav Havel credited the album, which he bought while visiting the United States, with bringing him to Czechoslovakia's president.

Nico had left the band and Warhol had been fired by the time the band recorded White Light/White Heat, both against Cale's wishes. Steve Sesnick was Warhol's replacement as boss. Cale left the band at Reed's behest in September 1968. Reed's tactics discredited Morrison and Tucker, but the band carried on. Doug Yule, a Boston-based musician who played bass guitar, keyboards, and who would soon share lead vocal duties in the band with Reed, was Cale's replacement. Reed's band now had a more pop-oriented sound and appeared more as a tool for him to explore his songwriting abilities. With this line-up, they released two studio albums: 1969's The Velvet Underground and 1970's Loaded. Reed left the Velvet Underground in August 1970. After Morrison and Tucker's departure in 1971, the band disintegrated.

Reed returned to his parents' house on Long Island and took up a job as a Typist with his father's tax accounting company, earning $40 per week ($279 in 2021 dollars). He signed RCA Records in 1971 and recorded his first solo album at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London, with session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman from the band Yes. Lou Reed's album featured interpretations of unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which had been recorded for Loaded but shelved. Most pop music reviewers dismissed this album and it didn't sell well, but Rolling Stone's music critic Stephen Holden called it a "most perfect album." "which embodied the Velvets' spirit." Holden continued to compare Reed's voice with those of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, and to celebrate his lyrics' poetic quality.

In November 1972, Reed's first commercial breakthrough album, Transformer, was released. Transformer was co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, and it introduced Reed to a wider audience, particularly in the United Kingdom. The single "Walk on the Wild Side" was a salute to the misfits and hustlers who once surrounded Andy Warhol in the late 1960s and appeared in his films. Each of the song's five verses refers to a person who appeared at The Factory from mid-to-late 1960s: (1) Holly Woodlawn, (2) Candy Darling, (3) "Little Joe" Dallesandro, (4) "Sugar Plum Fairy" Joe Campbell, and (5) Jackie Curtis. The song's transgressive lyrics defyved radio censorship. Though the jazzy arrangement (courtesy of bassist Herbie Flowers and saxophonist Ronnie Ross) was atypical for Reed, it became his signature tune. It came as a result of a commission to produce a soundtrack to Nelson Algren's book of the same name, but the play did not materialize. Reed's only entry in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart was "Walk on the Wild Side," at No. 103. 16.

Ronson's set-up brought out new elements of Reed's songs. For example, "Perfect Day" has delicate strings and soaring dynamics. It was rediscovered in the 1990s and invited Reed to remove "Walk on the Wild Side" from his performances.

During a late-night meeting that resulted in Reed striking Bowie, Bowie, Bowie, and Reed broke down. If they were to collaborate together again, Bowie told Reed that he'd have to "clean up his act." Reed recruited the Tots, a local New York bar band, to tour in favor of Transformers and spent much of 1972 and 1973 on the road with them. Reed (with producer Bob Ezrin's help) decided to recruit a new backing band in anticipation of the forthcoming Berlin album, although they've risen over the months. On a week's notice, keyboardist Moogy Klingman was chosen to lead a new five-member band.

Reed married Bettye Kronstad in 1973. When on tour, she revealed he had been a alcoholic while inebriated. Berlin (July 1973) was a concept album about two speed-freaks in love in the city. The songs all concern domestic violence ("Caroline Says I"), heroin use ("How Does It Feel"), adultery and prostitution ("The Kids"), and suicide ("The Bed"). In late 1973, Reed's late 1973 European tour, which featured lead guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, mixed his Berlin songs with older audiences. At the time of its emergence, Berlin was negative, with Rolling Stone calling it "a disaster." Reed found the poor reviews it had received were highly concerning. Since then, the album has been critically reevaluated, and Rolling Stone included it in their list of the best albums of all time in 2003. Berlin reached its high point at No. 1. On the UK Albums Chart, the 7th is the best.

Reed befriended Steve Katz of Blood, Sweat & Tears (who was the brother of his then-manager Dennis Katz), who recommended that Reed put together a "great live band" and debut a live album of Velvet Underground songs following Berlin's commercial failure. Katz will appear as producer, and the compilation Rock 'n' Roll Animal (February 1974) contained live performances of the Velvet Underground songs "Sweet Jane," "Heroin," "White Light/White Heat," and "Rock and Roll." Reed's live recordings, as well as Hunter's introduction to "Sweet Jane" which opened the album, gave his songs the live rock sound he was after, and the album debuted at No. 9. The Billboard 200 has been on the Billboard 200 for 28 weeks, and Reed's most popular album has since been released soon. With 500,000 certified sales, it went gold in 1978.

Sally Can't Dance, which was released later this year (in August 1974), became Reed's most charted album in the United States, peaking at No. 2 in the top charts, peaking at No. 40. During a 14-week absence from Billboard's Billboard 200 album chart in October 1974, he ranked ten on the Billboard 200 album chart.

An audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhol's 1975 book "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" was discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 2019.

Reed was a regular user of methamphetamine and alcohol during the 1970s. He was confirmed to headline Startruckin' 75 in Europe in the summer of 1975, a touring rock festival run by Miles Copeland. Reed's heroin use made him unreliable and he never appeared on tour, causing Copeland to replace him with Ike and Tina Turners.

Metal Machine Music (1975) by Reed was an hour of modulated feedback and guitar effects. Many commentators characterized it as "tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator," according to some commentators, a sign of disrespect, an effort to break his employment with RCA or alienate his less savvy followers. Reed said that the album was a genuine artistic effort inspired by La Monte Young's drone music, and that classical music quotations could be found buried in the feedback, but that, "well, anyone who goes to side four is dumber than me." It was described as "genius" by Lester Bangs, but also emotionally disturbing. According to reports, the album, which has been regarded as a visionary textural guitar masterpiece by some music critics, was returned to stores by the thousands and was withdrawn after a few weeks.

Coney Island Baby, 1975, was dedicated to Reed's then-partner Rachel Humphreys, a transgender woman Reed dated and lived with for three years. Humphreys appears in the pictures on Reed's 1977 "best of" album, Walk on the Wild Side: Lou Reed's Best of Lou Reed. Rock and Roll Heart was his debut for his new record company Arista in 1976, and Street Hassle (1978) was first published in the midst of the punk rock revival that he had aided in. Reed took on a keen, competitive, and in some cases dismissive attitude against punk. He was aware that he had inspired them, and he attended shows at Cardiff College to track the creative and commercial growth of a number of punk bands, as well as a front cover illustration and interview of Reed in the first issue of Punk magazine by Legs McNeil.

Reed's third live album, Live: Take No Prisoners, was released in 1978; some commentators thought it was his "most recent work," while others said it was his "silliest." Reed's monologues were compared to Lenny Bruce's on "one of the funniest live albums ever recorded," Rolling Stone said. Reed said it was his best album to date. Don Cherry, a jazz trumpeter, appeared on the Bells (1979). Reed performed extensively in Europe and the United States during his 1979 tour, including a collection of key tracks from his Berlin album and Chuck Hammer's title track on guitar-synth. Reed also appeared in Paul Simon's film One-Trick Pony around this time. Reed began weaning himself off opioids around 1979.

In 1980, Reed married British designer Sylvia Morales. Morales inspired Reed to write several songs, including "Think It Over" from 1980's Growing Up in Public and "Heavenly Arms" from 1982's The Blue Mask. Critics such as Rolling Stone writer Tom Carson, whose review began, were enthusiastically for the latest album, and its genius is at once both simple and surprising, with no genuine reaction being given. At this late stage of the game, who expected anything like this from Reed? Robert Christgau wrote "The Blue Mask" is his "most controlled, open-hearted, deeply felt, and uninhibited album," he said in the Village Voice. Reed was sufficiently revived as a public figure to become a Honda scooter ambassador after Legendary Hearts (1983) and New Sensations (1984). Reed worked with guitarists including Chuck Hammer on Growing Up in Public and Legendary Hearts in the early 1980s, as well as Robert Quine on The Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts.

Reed's 1984 album New Sensations marked the first time Reed had charted in the United Kingdom since 1978's Street Hassle, as well as the first time Reed had charted in the UK for the first time since 1976's Coney Island Baby. Despite the fact that its lead single "I Love You, Suzanne" only charted at No. 1 in the U.S. On the UK Singles Chart, it did not get a lot of attention on MTV, with the number 78 on the chart. Two more singles were released from the album: "My Red Joystick" and the Dutch-only "High in the City," but they did not achieve success.

Reed had a distinctive persona in the 1970s: "Back then, he was gay, pretended to shoot heroin onstage, and created a 'Dachau panda' appearance, with cropped perfe hair and black circles painted under his eyes," The New York Times wrote, "In the 1970s, he had a distinct personality." "Reed deanounced opioid drugs, even swore off intoxicants, and became openly heterosexual, openly married" in 1980, according to the journal.

Reed appeared at the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois, on September 22, 1985. As his solo set, he performed "Doin' the Things We Want To," "I Love You, Suzanne," "New Sensations," and "Walk on the Wild Side," and "Walk on the Wild Side." Reed released Mistrial in June 1986 (co-produced with bassist Fernando Saunders). He released two music videos, "No Money Down" and "The Original Wrapper" to promote the album. He was on the short tour with Amnesty International in the same year, and he was outspoken about New York City's political concerns and personalities. He appeared on Steven Van Zandt's 1985 anti-Apartheid film "Sun City" and promised not to attend the beach.

When it hit 500,000 sales in 1997, New York, a crime, AIDS, civil rights lawyer Jesse Jackson, then-President of Austria Kurt Waldheim and Pope John Paul II, became his second gold-certified work. Reed was nominated for the Grammy Award for the best male rock vocal performance on the record.

At Warhol's funeral in 1987, Reed met John Cale for the first time in many years. They worked on the album Songs for Drella (April 1990), a music cycle about Warhol. Reed sings of his love for his late friend and criticizes both the doctors who were unable to save Warhol's life and Warhol's would-be assassin, Valerie Solanas. The first Velvet Underground lineup formed in 1990 for a Fondation Cartier benefit show in France. The Velvet Underground reunited and toured Europe in June and July 1993, with some appearances at the Glastonbury Festival; plans for a North American tour were postponed due to a dispute between Reed and Cale.

In January 1992, Reed's sixteenth solo album, Magic and Loss, was released. The album is based on mortality, which was inspired by the death of two close friends from cancer. He appeared in A Celebration: Pete Townshend and The Who's in 1994. He and Morales were divorced in the same year. Reed made a cameo appearance in Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors in 1995. Reed appears shortly after the game starts as an unbeatable boss who murders the player with his laser beam eyes. Reed then pops up on the screen and says to the player, "This is the impossible degree, boys." Impossible doesn't mean winning the Nobel Prize; it's extremely difficult; impossible is eating the sun.

The Velvet Underground were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Reed, Cale, and Tucker performed "Last Night Said Goodbye to My Friend," dedicated to Sterling Morrison, who had died in August. Reed introduced Set the Twilight Reeling in February 1996, and later this year, Reed contributed songs and music to Time Rocker, a theatrical adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, directed by Robert Wilson. The work premiered in Hamburg's Thalia Theater and was later shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

Reed was romantically linked to avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, and the two performed together on many recordings. They married on April 12, 2008.

Reed appeared at the Thalia Theater again in February 2000, this time on POEtry, another work influenced by the work of a 19th-century author, this time Edgar Allan Poe. Reed's Ecstasy was released in April 2000. Reed introduced The Raven, a 2-CD set based on POEtry, in January 2003. Reed's album features songs from his book and spoken-word interpretations of Edgar Allan Poe's reworked and rewritten scripts, as well as Reed's electronic music. Willem Dafoe, David Bowie, Steve Buscemi, and Ornette Coleman appear in the program. A single disc CD version of the album, focusing on the music, was also released.

Reed appeared at the Great Jubilee Concert in Rome in May 2000 before Pope John Paul II. Reed made a cameo appearance in Prozac Country's 2001 film version. The New York Times published "Laurie Sadly Listening" in which he talks about the September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11). Several radio stations in the United States broadcast incorrect news about Reed's death in 2001, which was prompted by a phishing email (purporting to be from Reuters) that said he died as a result of a drug overdose. Reed began a world tour with cellist Jane Scarpantoni and singer Anohni in April 2003.

Emotions in Action, Reed's first book of photographs, was published in 2003. This was comprised of an A4-sized book called Emotions and a smaller one called Actions which was laid into its hard cover. Lou Reed's New York, a photographer, published his second book of photographs in January 2006. In 2009, Romanticism, a third volume, was published.

"Satellite of Love," a Groovefinder remix of his song "Satellite of Love," was released in 2004. It hit No. 1 in the world's highest rank. On the UK Singles Chart, 10 of the 100 greatest figures on the internet singles chart.

Reed was on hand 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. He appeared on "The Stranger Song" by a heavy metal band.

Reed held a series of shows at St. Ann's Warehouse, Brooklyn, a Berlin-based bookstore in December of this year. Reed performed on the original album and Rock 'n' Roll Animal, and Anohni and Sharon Jones followed him on tour. Bob Ezrin, who also produced the original album, and Hal Willner produced the show. During January 2007 and Europe, the display appeared at the Sydney Festival in January 2007 and 2007. Both the album version of the concert, Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, and a live film recording of these performances were released in 2008. Hudson River Wind Meditations, an album of ambient meditational music, was released in April 2007. It was released on the Sounds True record label. He appeared at the Traffic Festival 2007 in Turin, Italy, a five-day free event organized by the city. In the same month, "Pale Blue Eyes" was included in the soundtrack to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a French-language film. Reed performed "Tranquilize" with the Killers in New York City in August 2007, a duet with Brandon Flowers for the B-side/rarities album Sawdust.

He unveiled his new band, Metal Machine Trio, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex in Los Angeles on October 2 and 3, 2008. Ulrich Krieger (saxophone) and Sarth Calhoun (electronics), as well as experimental instrumental music influenced by Metal Machine Music, were included in the trio's performance. The Creation of the Universe was the title of the concerts' recordings. The trio appeared at Gramercy Theatre in New York in April 2009, and at the 2009 Lollapalooza, as part of Reed's band.

Reed played Maltazard, the villain in the 2009 Luc Besson animated/live action film Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard, and he appeared as himself in Wim Wenders' 2008 film Palermo Shooting.

At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Reed performed "Sweet Jane" and "White Light/White Heat" with Metallica at Madison Square Garden on October 30, 2009. Reed appeared on the track "Some Kind of Nature" with virtual band Gorillaz from their third studio album Plastic Beach in 2010. Metallica and Reed's collaboration album Lulu was released in October 2011. It was based on Frank Wedekind's "Lulu" plays (1864-1918). The album received mixed and mostly critical feedback from music critics. Reed boasted that he had no followers left. The album debuted at No. 1 in the United States. With first-week orders of 13,000 copies, the Billboard 200 made 36 copies.

Reed appeared on "The Wanderlust," the tenth track on their fifth studio album Synthetica, in 2012. This was supposed to be the last original composition he worked on.

Lou Reed Archive Collection, which was released in June 2022 by Light in the Attic Records with Laurie Anderson. With an album titled Words & Music, May 1965, the collection will begin with unreleased content.

1958–64: Early recordings and education

Reed's debut appeared on a doowop three-piece band called the Jades, with Reed as a member and singing backing vocals. The group was given the opportunity to record "So Blue" with the B-side "Leave Her for Me" later this year after attending a talent show at Freeport Junior High School in early 1958 and receiving a warm response from the audience. Although the single didn't chart, King Curtis, the music producer, was brought in as a session musician, and during the Murray the K radio show, which gave Reed his first-ever airplay. Reed's passion for playing music and his desire to perform live gigs brought him into conflict with his apprehensive and unaccommodious parents.

His sister recalled that after a mental breakdown, he was taken home one day and unresponsive for a few days, and that his parents were having trouble coping, and that his parents were having a difficult time. Reed's parents were made to feel guilty as ineffective parents, and they consented to Lou electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Reed seemed to blame his father for the medical care he had received. He reflected on his time with "Kill Your Sons," a collection of Sally Can't Dance (1974). Reed later described the incident as traumatic and leading to memory loss. He said he was treated to mispel his feelings of homosexuality. Reed's sister denied that the ECT drugs were supposed to curb his "homosexual urges," claiming that they were not homophobic, but that ECT was necessary to treat Reed's mental and behavioral disorders.

Reed resumed his studies at Syracuse University in 1960, studying journalism, filmmaking, and creative writing following his recovery from his illness and related therapies. He served as a platoon leader in ROTC, but he was later barred from the program for carrying an unloaded firearms to his superior's head.

Reed performed under various band names on campus, one of which being 'L.A.' Eldorados' and the Eldorados') and performed throughout Central New York. They were usually kicked out of fraternity parties for their brash personalities and insistence on producing their own material, according to Perchellar. On a Wobbly Rail in 1961, he launched Excursions, a late-night radio show on WAER. The programme, named after a song by pianist Cecil Taylor, featured doo wop, rhythm and blues, as well as jazz, particularly the free jazz that emerged in the mid-1950s. Reed said that he was inspired by such artists as Ornette Coleman, who had "always had a great influence" on him; he said that his guitar on "European Son" was his way of imitating the jazz saxophonist. Reed's sister said that the university authorities had attempted unsuccessfully to expel him during her brother's stay at Syracuse because they did not approve of his extracurricular activities. He studied at Syracuse University with poet Delmore Schwartz, who he described as "the first great person I've ever encountered," and the two became friends. Schwartz praised him for teaching him how "with the simplest words imaginable" and "very short, you will achieve the most amazing heights." Garland Jeffreys, one of Reed's early 1960s classmates (who also studied under Schwartz), remained close friends until the end of Reed's life.

"At four o'clock in the afternoon, we'd all meet at [the bar] The Orange Grove," Reed remembered. Me, Delmore, Lou Lou. Often the crew's heart would be in the center of the ship. And Delmore, the king, was the king, our "quiet king." Reed was also introduced to intravenous drug use for the first time at Syracuse and was quickly diagnosed with hepatitis. Reed dedicated the song "European Son" from the first Velvet Underground album to Schwartz. Reed's album "My House" was released in 1982 as a tribute to his late mentor. He later said that his writing ambitions were "to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music" or that the Great American Novel in a record album. Reed was introduced to Sterling Morrison, a student at City University of New York, while visiting a mutual friend and Jim Tucker, a Syracuse student. Reed received a Bachelor's Degree from Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. In June 1964, Cum lauded in England.

Reed moved to New York City in 1964 to work as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. On two cuts of The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook can be seen. Pickwick also produced and performed "The Ostrich," a parody of popular dance songs of the day, with lines such as "put your head on the ground and have someone step on it." His managers believed that the song had potential, and they hired a support band to help promote the album. The Primitives, a Welsh musician who had recently moved to New York to study music and played viola in composer La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, was led by Reed, Welsh musician John Cale, who had recently migrated to New York to study music and was playing viola. Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same pitch, surprising Cale and Conrad, who dubbed it "ostrich guitar" tuning. This technique gave a drone effect similar to those used in Young's avant-garde ensemble. Cale was nevertheless impressed by Reed's early repertoire, including "Heroin"), and a friendship began to develop, despite being dissatisfied with Reed's appearance.

Reed and Cale (who played viola, keyboards, and bass guitar) lived on the Lower East Side, and Reed's college acquaintance, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and Cale's neighbor drummer Angus MacLise joined the band, forming the Velvet Underground. MacLise resigned because accepting art was a loser and did not want to participate in a structured profession when they had the opportunity to perform their first paying gig at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey, and did not want to enroll in a structured program. Moe Tucker, the sister of Reed and Morrison's mutual friend Jim Tucker, was replaced on drums by him. Initially a fill-in for a one-show, she soon became a full member of the band with her drumming a vital piece of the band's sound, despite Cale's initial reservations. Despite the fact that the band had no commercial success, it has been described as one of rock history's most influential. Reed, the band's primary singer and songwriter, was Reed.

Andy Warhol's band soon came to his attention. One of Warhol's first contributions was to incorporate them into the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. As he fell into a burgeoning, multifaceted cultural scene, Warhol's associates inspired many of Reed's songs. Reed rarely gave an interview without respecting Warhol as a mentor. Warhol ordered the band to perform a chanteuse, including German former model and singer Nico. Reed wrote several songs for Nico to sing, and the two were briefly lovers.

The Velvet Underground & Nico was launched in March 1967 and peaked at No. 67. On the United States, 171 people were born 171. Billboard is 200. Rolling Stone named it as the 13th best album of all time; Brian Eno once said that although few people bought the album, the majority of them were inspired to form their own bands. Václav Havel credited the album, which he bought while visiting the United States, with influencing him to become President of Czechoslovakia.

Nico had left the band and Warhol had been fired by the time the band's records were released, both against Cale's wishes. Steve Sesnick was Warhol's replacement as boss. Cale left the band at Reed's behest in September 1968. Reed's tactics discredited Morrison and Tucker, but the band carried on. Doug Yule, a Boston-based guitarist who performed bass guitar, keyboards, and who would eventually share lead vocal duties in the band with Reed, was Cale's replacement. Reed's band now had a more pop-oriented sound and acted more as a platform for him to explore his songwriting craft. With this collection, they released two studio albums: 1969's The Velvet Underground and 1970's Loaded. Reed left the Velvet Underground in August 1970. Morrison and Tucker left in 1971, and the band disintegrated.

Reed left the Velvet Underground and began working at his father's tax accounting company as a typist, earning $40 a week ($279 in 2021 dollars). He signed RCA Records and recorded his first solo album at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London, with session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman from the band Yes. Lou Reed's album featured unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which had been recorded for Loaded but not released. Most pop music analysts dismissed this album, though Rolling Stone's music critic Stephen Holden called it a "most excellent album." "Which embodied the Velvet spirit." Holden continued to compare Reed's voice with those of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, as well as praise his lyrics' poetic quality.

In November 1972, Reed's first commercial breakthrough album, Transformer, was released. Transformer was co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, and it brought Reed to a larger audience, particularly in the United Kingdom. "Walk on the Wild Side" was a salute to the misfits and hustlers who once surrounded Andy Warhol in the late '60s and appeared in his films. Each of the song's five verses refers to a person who appeared at The Factory from the mid-to-late 1960s: (1) Holly Woodlawn, (2) Candy Darling, (3) "Little Joe" Dallesandro, (4) "Sugar Plum Fairy" Joe Campbell, and (5) Jackie Curtis. The song's transgressive lyrics defyved radio censorship. Although the jazzy arrangement (courtesy of bassist Herbie Flowers and saxophonist Ronnie Ross) was atypical for Reed, it later became his signature tune. It came as a result of a commission to produce a soundtrack to Nelson Algren's book of the same name; the play did not materialize. Reed's only entry in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart was "Walk on the Wild Side," at No. 11. 16.

Ronson's set-up brought out new aspects of Reed's songs. For example, "Perfect Day" has delicate strings and soaring energy. In the 1990s, it was rediscovered, allowing Reed to no longer be seen on the Wild Side" from his shows.

During a late-night meeting that culminated in Reed crushing Bowie, Bowie, Bowie and Reed fell out. Bowie had told Reed that if they were to work together again, they would have to "clean up his act." Reed recruited the Tots, a local New York bar band, to tour in favor of Transformers and spent most of 1972 and early 1973 on the road with them. Reed (with producer Bob Ezrin's support) decided to recruit a new backing band in anticipation of the forthcoming Berlin album, despite that they've progressed over the months. On a week's notice, Moogy Klingman, a keyboardist, decided to form a new five-member band.

In 1973, Reed married Bettye Kronstad. She later said he had been a party animal while on tour. Berlin (July 1973) was a concept album about two speed-freaks in love in the city. "Caroline Says I," "Caroline Says II"), heroin use ("How Does It Feel"), adultery and prostitution ("The Children"), and suicide ("The Bed") are among the songs that refer to domestic violence ("Caroline Says I." Reed's late 1973 European tour, which starred lead guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, mixed his Berlin songs with older audiences. At the time of its publication, Berlin's reaction was non-existent, with Rolling Stone describing it as "a disaster." Reed found the poor reviews it received was extremely disappointing. Since then, the album has been highly reevaluated, and Rolling Stone included it in their list of the top albums of all time in 2003. Berlin ranked No. 1 in the world rankings. On the UK Albums Chart, 7th on the Chart.

Reed befriended Steve Katz of Blood, Sweat & Tears (who was the brother of his then-manager Dennis Katz), who recommended that Reed put together a "great live band" and debut a live album of Velvet Underground songs after Berlin's commercial setback. Katz would appear on board as a designer, and "Rock 'n' Roll Animal" (February 1974) contained live performances of the Velvet Underground songs "Sweet Jane," "White Light/White Heat," and "Rock and Roll." Reed's songs had the live rock sound he was looking for on the album, as well as Hunter's introduction to "Sweet Jane" which opened the album, and the album debuted at No. 25. The Billboard 200 was on the Billboard 200 for 28 weeks, and Reed's biggest selling song was soon after. With 500,000 registered sales, it went gold in 1978.

Sally Can't Dance, which was published later this year (in August 1974), became Reed's highest-charting album in the United States, peaking at No. 58. During a 14-week absence from the Billboard 200 album chart in October 1974, ten became the tenth on the Billboard 200 chart.

An audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhol's 1975 book "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again," was reported to have been found in an archive at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Reed was a frequent user of methamphetamine and alcohol in the 1970s. He was confirmed to headline Startruckin' 75 in Europe in the summer of 1975, a touring rock festival produced by Miles Copeland. Reed's heroin use made him unreliable, and he never appeared on tour, prompting Copeland to replace him with Ike & Tina Turner.

Metal Machine Music (1975) by Reed was an hour of modulated feedback and guitar effects. Many commentators mistook it for disrespect, an effort to end his RCA deal or alienate his less savvy followers, with Rolling Stone describing it as the "tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator." Reed claimed that the album was a true artistic effort influenced by La Monte Young's drone music, and that classical music quotations could be found buried in the discussion, but that "well, anyone who goes to side four is dumber than I am." Lester Bangs described it as "genius" but also psychologically troubling. According to reports, the album, which has been regarded as a visionary textural guitar masterpiece by some music commentators, was back to stores by the thousands and was pulled after a few weeks.

Coney Island Baby was dedicated to Reed's then-partner Rachel Humphreys, a transgender woman Reed met and lived with for three years. In the images on Reed's 1977 "best of" album, Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed, Humphreys also appears. Rock and Roll Heart was his debut for his new record label Arista, in 1976, and Street Hassle (1978) was released in the midst of the punk rock revival that he had helped inspire. Reed took on a punk-watchful, competitive, and often dismissive approach. Besides being aware that he had inspired them, Reed attended shows at CBGB to track the artistic and commercial growth of countless punk bands, as well as a cover story and interview of Reed in the first issue of Punk magazine by Legs McNeil.

In 1978, Reed released his third live album, Take No Prisoners; some commentators thought it was his "bravest work to date," while others deemed it his "silliest." Rolling Stone compared Reed's monologues to Lenny Bruce's "one of the funniest live albums ever recorded" and compared it to Lenny Bruce's. Reed thought it was his best album to date. Don Cherry, a jazz trumpeter, appeared on the Bells (1979). Reed performed extensively in Europe and throughout the United States during his 1979 tour, including a collection of key songs from his Berlin album and Chuck Hammer on guitar-synth. Around this time, Reed appeared in Paul Simon's film One-Trick Pony as a record producer. Reed began weaning himself off heroin around 1979.

In 1980, Reed married British designer Sylvia Morales. Reed wrote several songs, including "Think It Over" from 1980's Growing Up in Public and "Heavenly Arms" from 1982's The Blue Mask, inspired Morales. "Lou Reed's The Blue Mask, a fantastic album, was lauded by writers such as Rolling Stone writer Tom Carson, who wrote about it, and its genius is at once so simple and strange that the only appropriate reaction is wonder. At this late stage of the game, who expected anything like this from Reed? Robert Christgau called The Blue Mask "his most controlled, open, deeply felt, and uninhibited album" in the Village Voice. Reed was sufficiently reestablished as a public figure to become a Honda scooter spokesperson after Legendary Hearts (1983) and New Sensations (1984). Reed collaborated with guitarists including Chuck Hammer on Growing Up in Public and Robert Quine on The Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts in the early 1980s.

Reed's 1984 album New Sensations was the first time Reed had charted in the United Kingdom since 1978's Street Hassle, and it was the first time Reed had charted in the United Kingdom since 1976's Coney Island Baby. Despite the fact that its lead single "I Love You, Suzanne" debuted at No. 1, it was only at No. 3 in the chart. On the UK Singles Chart, it did appear that MTV did not have a light rotation. "My Red Joystick" and the Dutch-only "High in the City" were two other singles from the album, but neither of them were able to chart, but they did not have to chart.

Reed had a distinct look in the 1970s: "Back then, he was openly gay, pretended to shoot heroin on stage, and cultivated a 'Dachau panda' style, with cropped pers painted under his eyes." "Reed condemned opioid use, even swore off heroin abusers, and became openly heterosexual, openly married" in 1980, according to the paper.

Reed appeared at the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois, on September 22, 1985. He performed "Doin' the Things We Want To," "I Love You, Suzanne," "New Sensations," and "Walk on the Wild Side" as his solo set, then playing bass for Roy Orbison in his set. Reed released Mistrial in June 1986 (co-produced with bassist Fernando Saunders). He released two music videos on the album: "No Money Down" and "The Original Wrapper." He spent a year with Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope short tour and was outspoken about New York City's political issues and personalities. He appeared on Steven Van Zandt's 1985 anti-Apartheid film "Sun City" and promised not to participate in the sport.

When it reached 500,000 units in 1997, New York's 1989 album, which featured crime, AIDS, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, then-President of Austria Kurt Waldheim and Pope John Paul II, became his second gold-certified work. Reed was nominated for the best male rock vocal performance on the album by a Grammy Award.

At Warhol's funeral in 1987, Reed met John Cale for the first time in many years. They appeared on the album Songs for Drella (April 1990), a warhol tribute album. Reed sings of his love for his late friend and criticizes both the physicians who were unable to save Warhol's life and Warhol's would-be assassin, Valerie Solanas on the album. In 1990, the first Velvet Underground lineup was reformed in France for a Fondation Cartier benefit show. Following a dispute between Reed and Cale, the Velvet Underground revived and toured Europe in June and July 1993, including a visit to Glastonbury Festival; plans for a North American tour were postponed.

In January 1992, Reed's sixteenth solo album, Magic and Loss, was released. The album is based on mortality, inspired by the deaths of two close friends from cancer. He appeared in A Celebration: Pete Townshend and The Who in 1994. He and Morales were divorced in the same year. Reed made a cameo appearance in the unreleased video game Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors in 1995. Reed appears shortly after the game begins as an unbeatable boss who murders the player with his laser beam eyes if the player selects the "impossible" difficulty mode. Reed then pops up on the screen and tells the viewer, "This is the impossible level, boys." Impossible doesn't mean winning the Nobel Prize, it's very difficult, but eating the sun is the most difficult.

The Velvet Underground were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Reed, Cale and Tucker performed a song titled "Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend," dedicated to Sterling Morrison, who had died in August. Reed introduced Set the Twilight Reeling in February 1996 and, later that year, Reed contributed songs and music to Time Rocker, a theatrical adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine by experimental director Robert Wilson. The work premiered in the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and was later on shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

Reed was romantically linked to avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, and the two performed on several albums together from 1992 to 1995. They married on April 12, 2008.

Reed appeared at the Thalia Theater again in February 2000, this time on POEtry, another work influenced by a 19th-century writer's work, this time Edgar Allan Poe. Reed unleashed Ecstasy in April 2000. Reed released The Raven, a 2-CD set based on POEtry, in January 2003. The collection features songs performed by Reed and spoken-word interpretations of Edgar Allan Poe's reworked and rewritten texts, as well as experimental music composed by Reed. It stars Willem Dafoe, David Bowie, Steve Buscemi, and Ornette Coleman. An album single CD version of the album, focusing on the music, was also released.

Reed appeared at the Great Jubilee Concert in Rome in May 2000 before Pope John Paul II. Reed made a cameo appearance in Prozac Nation's 2001 film version. The New York Times published "Laurie Sadly Listening," a Reed poem in which he reflects on the September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11). Several US radio stations in 2001 were mistakenly reporting Reed's death, despite the fact that he died of a drug overdose (purporting to be from Reuters). Reed began a world tour in April 2003 with cellist Jane Scarpantoni and singer Anohni.

Emotions in Action, Reed's third book of photographs, was published in 2003. This included an A4-sized book called Emotions and a smaller one called Actions, which were laid into its hard cover. Lou Reed's New York was his second book of photographs published in January 2006. In 2009, Romanticism, a third volume, was published.

"Satellite of Love," a Groov '04 remix of his song "Satellite of Love," was released in 2004. It reached its high point at No. 10. On the UK Singles Chart, number ten is at number ten.

Reed, Julia Anderson, Nick Cave, Anohni, Jarvis Cocker, and Beth Orton appeared on Hal Willner's "Came So Far for Beauty" in Dublin in October 2006. "The Stranger Song" by Cohen was played by him on heavy metal.

Reed presented a series of shows at St. Ann's Warehouse, Brooklyn, a Berlin-based warehouse. Reed performed with guitarist Steve Hunter, who appeared on the original album and Rock 'n' Roll Animals, and Anohni and Sharon Jones followed him. Bob Ezrin, who also produced the original album, and Hal Willner produced the show. During January 2007 and Europe, the performance appeared at the Sydney Festival in January 2007 and July 2007. In 2008, the album version of the show, Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, and a live film recording of these concerts were released. Hudson River Wind Meditations, an album of ambient meditational music, was released in April 2007. It was released on the Sounds True record label. He appeared at the Traffic Festival 2007 in Turin, Italy, a five-day free festival organized by the city. "Pale Blue Eyes" was included in the soundtrack to the French-language film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in the same month. Reed recorded "Tranquilize" with the Killers in New York City in August 2007, a duet with Brandon Flowers for the B-side/rarities album Sawdust.

He unveiled his new group, Metal Machine Trio, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex in Los Angeles on October 2 and 3, 2008. Ulrich Krieger (saxophone) and Sarth Calhoun (electronics), as well as experimental music influenced by Metal Machine Music, were among the trio's performances. The Creation of the Universe was the first recording of the concerts. In April 2009, the trio appeared as part of Reed's band at the 2009 Lollapalooza.

Reed starred Maltazard, the villain in Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard's 2009 Luc Besson animated/live action film Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard, and appeared in Wim Wenders' 2008 film Palermo Shooting.

During the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's twentieth anniversary celebration, Reed performed "Sweet Jane" and "White Light/White Heat" with Metallica at Madison Square Garden. Reed appeared on the song "Some Kind of Nature" by the virtual band Gorillaz from their third studio album Plastic Beach in 2010. Metallica and Reed's collaboration album Lulu was released in October 2011. It was based on Frank Wedekind's "Lulu" scripts (1864-1918). Music critics gave mixed and mostly critical feedback on the album. Reed boasted that he had no followers left. The album debuted at No. 93. With first-week sales of 13,000 copies, 36 on the Billboard 200 made it to the first week.

Reed collaborated with Metric in 2012 on "The Wanderlust," the tenth track on their fifth studio album Synthetica's fifth studio album Synthetica's tenth track. This was supposed to be the last original composition on which he worked.

Lou Reed Archive Series was revealed by Light in the Attic Records with Laurie Anderson in June 2022. In May 1965, the collection would feature unreleased material on a CD called Words & Music.

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