Lewis Allan Reed was a guitar player, songwriter and singer for The Velvet Underground (VU) band and enjoyed a solo career for fifty years. Albeit the VU was not a commercial achievement, they went on to be among impactful bands in the entire history of alternative rock and underground music. Reed’s signature smooth voice, transgressive and poignant lyrics and improvised guitar play have been the hallmarks in the man’s extensive career. Read more about the musician, composer and rocker on i-brooklyn.
“Real god was rock ‘n’ roll”
Lewis A. Reed was born on March 2, 1942, at Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn and raised in Freeport, Long Island. Reed was the son of Toby and Sidney Joseph Reed, an accountant. He had a Jewish family. His grandparents were Russian Jews who fled anti-Semitism. His father changed the family name from Rabinowitz to Reed. Reed stated that in spite of being Jewish, his “real god was rock ‘n’ roll.”
Having learned to play guitar on the radio, he found himself interested in rock and roll and rhythm and blues early on and performed in several bands in high school. He also pursued poetry at Syracuse University as a student of D. Schwartz. While in college he used to work at a radio station as a DJ, organizing nightly avant-garde music shows. Upon graduation from the university, he became involved with Pickwick Records in NYC, a modest record company that focused on recording, songwriting and session musicians. Another such player there was J. Cale. Along with A. MacLise and S. Morrison, they founded the VU in 1965. Having gained some prestige in avant-garde music, the band got noticed by Andy Warhol, who took over as manager.
Solo career
The musicians grew into a staple at The Factory, Warhol’s art studio, and were his regular band for a variety of endeavors. The band recorded its first album in 1967, joined by Nico (German singer) and M. Tucker (drummer). Soon afterward, they separated from Warhol. After some adjustments and three more obscure albums, Reed would eventually leave the band in 1970.
Subsequently, Reed pursued his more financially viable solo career, recording 20 solo studio albums. His second album, Transformer, had D. Bowie as producer and M. Ronson as arranger. It earned him widespread acclaim. The album that included Reed’s most accomplished single, Walk on the Wild Side, is hailed as a milestone in the glam rock genre. Following Transformer, the less marketed but critically praised Berlin took 7th place in the UK album chart. 1974 live album Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal had high sales, and Sally Can’t Dance peaked as #10 on the Billboard 200.
An album with Metallica
For a substantial period afterwards, however, Reed’s work was not commercially successful. It caused him to become depressed and addicted to drugs and alcohol. In the early 1980s, the composer went to rehab and step by step reclaimed his popularity with New Sensations and The Blue Mask, achieving the decisive and profitable summit of his career with the 1989 New York album.
Besides the music for his songs, Reed composed music for two theatrical interpretations of 19th-century writers. One of them became the album (The Raven). He wed his third wife, Laurie Anderson. In 2008, he recorded the joint album with Metallica (Lulu). Reed was enshrined into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a VU member (in 1996) and as a solo artist (in 2015).