Lou Reed

I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m gonna try for the kingdom if I can
‘Cause it make me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein
Then I tell you things aren’t quite the same
When I’m rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus’ son
And I guess that I just don’t know
And I guess that I just don’t know.

–from “Heroin”

For thirty-five years Lou Reed has been at the forefront of the avant-garde in popular music. His gritty and realistic vision made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised urban youth of the 1960s and 1970s. A counterpoint to the booming impersonal economy of the 1980s and 1990s, Reed has asserted a brutal honesty into both his music and lyrics that demands the full attention of contemporary listeners. From punk rock to grunge, Reed has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.

Lou Reed was born in Freeport, Long Island in March of 1942. Greatly influenced by the popular Rhythm and Blues of the time, Reed played in a number of bands while still in high school. After graduating, he attended Syracuse University where he developed a defining friendship with poet Delmore Schwartz. A mentor to Reed, Schwartz’s ability to create complex emotional landscapes with a simple vernacular language, impressed on Reed the possibilities within the everyday voice of the streets. After Syracuse, Reed moved to New York, where he worked writing popular songs.

In 1965, along with classically trained violinist and pianist John Cale, bass and guitar player Sterling Morrison, drummer Maureen Tucker, and singer Nico, Reed formed the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground cast off the optimism and light-hearted quality of the popular music of the time and made their mark with songs like “Heroin” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” which engaged the harrowing urban realities they knew well. More than just an alternative to the prevailing 1960s culture of hippies and flower power, the Velvet Underground was a band with an artistic and political vision beyond the realms of popular music. Produced by Andy Warhol, the Velvet were crucial in introducing and popularizing mixed-media happenings with dancers, projected film, and strobe light shows.

After six years and four albums with the Velvet Underground, Reed embarked on a solo career, in which he continued to challenge prevailing forms with breakthrough albums such as BERLIN (1973), METAL MACHINE MUSIC (1975), and MAGIC AND LOSS (1992). Reed’s lyrics examined taboo adult subjects, extreme life styles, and the urban underground. Speaking of Reed’s groundbreaking work, David Bowie said, “The nature of his lyric writing had been hitherto unknown in rock…he supplied us with the street and the landscape, and we peopled it.”

Reed’s seminal 1972 album TRANSFORMER, produced by David Bowie, signaled the beginning of what music critics termed “glam rock.” Epitomized by gender blurring, highly dramatic lighting, and explosive concert tours, glam rock brought Lou Reed to a new height of fame. Dealing with transsexuality, his song “Walk on the Wild Side,” made it to the top twenty in the United States and the top ten in the United Kingdom. The now classic song was a brave exaltation of the lives of those who remained hidden from most Americans.

In 1987, at Andy Warhol’s funeral, Reed and his former partner John Cale were reunited. “It came to pass afterwards there was this idea,” says Reed “to do a musical biography.” The result was the SONGS FOR DRELLA collaboration—a tribute to Warhol who in his lifetime had been affectionately called Drella (a combination of Dracula and Cinderella). Reed went on to collaborate with the rest of the band and later with Laurie Anderson. Always elusive, always changing, Lou Reed has documented the turbulence of his time with an insight and fascination rare to a popular performer. In the late 1990s his gifts were recognized with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Chevalier Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Government, and the prestigious Hero Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Today he continues his life-long experimentation as both a writer and performer.

In 1987, singer Aretha Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This was a testament to her impact on the music world over the course of her long and exciting career. From her teenage days singing gospel in her father’s church to her ascendancy to rock and roll royalty, “The Queen of Soul” has expressed a passion and intensity that has never failed to move her listeners.

Franklin’s roots, which she never abandoned, are in gospel music. As a girl, she began singing in the choir of her father’s church, the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. The Reverend C.L. Franklin, a noted figure in black America in the 1950s and 60s, was one of the first ministers to have his own nationally-broadcast radio show. Because of his stature, many famous black musicians, including Sam Cooke, Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Wilson, visited the Franklin home.

In the early 1960s, legendary talent scout and record producer John Hammond signed Franklin to her first recording contract with Columbia Records. Hammond said Franklin was the greatest voice since Billie Holiday. Unfortunately, her advisors had different ideas about the direction her career should take. Occupying a space between Rock and Roll and Gospel, Franklin could not find her niche. Those years at Columbia gave her experience and exposure, but no big hits.

In 1967, however, Franklin moved to Atlantic records, where she finally achieved a commercial breakthrough with “I Never Loved a Man.” She had found her style with a new blend of gospel vocals with inventive piano playing in passionate secular love songs. For Franklin, soul music combined a personal and emotional voice with the drive of the 1960’s black pride movement. In the late 60s and early 70s, it was the rare Franklin recording that did not become a soul classic.

In these early years Franklin was viewed as a potent symbol of black advancement. She often lent her talents to the civil rights cause, and performed publicly in support of Martin Luther King, Jr., a family friend. But by the mid-1970s, soul music had lost much of its political and social significance. The musical trends of the time reflected new values, and Franklin lost momentum and direction. She again switched record companies, and began to record a wide variety of music.

Throughout the eighties, Franklin had major hits such as “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” and “Freeway of Love,” but her biggest songs were collaborations. She recorded duets with Annie Lenox, James Brown, Whitney Houston, and had a number one hit, “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me),” with George Michael. Always trying to expand her range, Franklin sang and performed in the movie THE BLUES BROTHERS, worked with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and recorded an amazing gospel album in 1987, “One Lord One Faith One Baptism.”

Now in her late fifties, Franklin continues to make exciting, vibrant, and personal music. The range of her achievements and of her commitment continue to be an inspiration to young musicians everywhere. It is clear however, that with such songs as “Do Right Woman—Do Right Man,” “Chain of Fools,” and “Respect,” it is those great early hits that will remain the defining work of “the Queen of Soul.”

They call him the “genius” and they call him the “father of soul.” With perfect pitch and an expressive voice, he combines worlds as diverse as jazz, country, rhythm and blues, and gospel to break your heart or make you dance. His name is Ray Charles, and if you turn your radio to any station you will hear the influence of his ground-breaking music.

Ray Charles was born into a poor family on September 23, 1930 in Albany, Georgia, though he was raised in Florida. Completely blind by the age of seven, Charles attended the Saint Augustine School of the Blind and Deaf where he began to study piano, saxophone, and clarinet. When he was only fifteen his mother died (followed two years later by his father) and Charles began working as a traveling musician throughout Florida, and later Washington state.

In the early years he traveled with country/western and jazz bands, singing and playing the piano. His “cool” sound was heavily influenced by the popular Nat “King” Cole, but he was beginning to find his style with a throatier, unrestrained sound reminiscent of gospel music. In 1950 he moved to Los Angeles , and by 1954 had his first big hit with Atlantic Records. “I Got A Woman,” combined the blues of greats like Guitar Slim with the sounds of gospel. This recording would make Charles famous and mark the beginning of a new genre, “soul.”

Charles spent the rest of the 1950s continuing to combine blues, gospel, and jazz in such hits as “In My Own Tears,” “What’d I Say,” “Unchain My Heart,” “Hit the Road Jack,” and “Georgia on My Mind.” With these dynamic compositions and his incredible popularity, Charles single-handedly changed the face of contemporary music. By the early 1960s, he formed a big band and had a top ten instrumental hit with “One Mint Julep.” He followed this with the 1962 release of GENIUS + SOUL = JAZZ, and a number of very popular country albums.

With the release of MODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY AND WESTERN (Vol 1 and 2), Charles brought his unique style to a new audience and had major hits including “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Born To Lose” and “Busted.” In the mid-1960s, he was arrested for drug possession, which prompted his successful fight against a seventeen year heroin addiction. During this time, Charles kept a low profile though he did have hits with a number of Beatles’ covers, and the song “Crying Time.” His output during the 1970s included work with singers Randy Newman and Stevie Wonder.

In the 1980s, Charles was often in the public eye, making frequent appearances on television and in the movies. He had a number of albums and performed duets with many well-known musicians including Willie Nelson, Chaka Khan, and the Blues Brothers. His appearance on the 1985 release of “We Are the World,” brought a renewed interest in much of his work. During the 1990s he continued to write and perform, and in 1992 President Bill Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts. To this day, Ray Charles is one of the most important influences on popular music. His passionate singing and intelligent melding of different genres remains the ideal by which many musicians continue to gauge their work.

Ray Charles died on June 10th, 2004.