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Lou Reed

It was March 2nd 1942 when Lewis Allan Reed was born in New York and during the 1960s he was songwriter and vocalist for the Velvet Underground. He normally wrote about drugs and alcohol which gained him a huge following in the 1960s. A little trivia here is to tell you that Andy Warhol was once the bands manager.

Lou left the group in 1970 and went solo with RCA and produced his first solo album called Lou Reed which had vocals on it from Rick Wakeman. It is fair to say the album did not do that well.

It was in 1972 with the help of David Bowie and Mick Ronson that he was able to release his next album called Transformer which included the amazing hit single called Walk On The Wild Side written by Lou and produced by David Bowie himself.

Not the sort of the song that anyone really expected to be a hit as it contained lyrics relating to sex, drugs and gay prostitutes too. The subject matter even contained oral sex which was definitely edited out of the US. single version. The story seems to revolve around Andy Warhol’s club in New York City called The Factory. Herbie Flowers actually played bass guitar on the single.

The album also contained the version of Perfect Day written by Lou and arranged by Mick Ronson. According to Reed part of the lyrics to this song tell of his struggle over his sexuality. Lou had ten critically acclaimed albums out during the 1970s including the Sally Can’t Dance from 1974.

His last album in the 1970s was The Bells from 1979 which had a track called City Lights which was a song about Charlie Chaplin. It is probably true to say that despite valiant attempts Lou never got back to the pinnacle of Walk On The Wild Side.

Lou married his long-term friend in 2008; she is Laurie Anderson who had a world-wide hit herself in 1981 with O Superman.

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