Velvet Underground’s rocker Reed dies at 71

Agencies

New York

Lou Reed, the American music pioneer who fused folk’s lyricism with punk rock’s energy and darkness, died on Sunday of complications stemming from a recent liver transplant. He was 71.

Reed’s literary agent Andrew Wylie said the singer-songwriter died at 11am on Long Island, the sprawling New York area that includes the borough of Brooklyn where he was born.

“The reason was complications following the liver transplant,” Wylie told AFP, referring to the operation Reed underwent in May, without which his family said death was certain given how poor his condition had become.

Viewed by many as the godfather of punk, Reed forged a new cultural universe with the Velvet Underground, the band he formed in New York with Welsh musician John Cale in 1965, a time of evolving youth identity.

“The world has lost a fine songwriter and poet...I’ve lost my ‘school-yard’ buddy,” Cale wrote on his website.

The arthouse group was popular though not particularly successful in terms of sales during the 1960s.

But Reed’s association with the era’s pop art luminary Andy Warhol helped the band gain a hip and burgeoning following, with the colourful artist doing the instantly iconic banana cover art for the Velvets’ self-titled debut album.

Warhol became the group’s manager in 1965, and they provided music for his multimedia roadshow the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and became the house band at his famed New York studio, The Factory.

“The Velvet Underground & Nico,” featured the pounding beat of I’m Waiting for the Man,” and the much slower Heroin, which was regarded as a dark testament to the drug’s extraordinary power over its users.

Reed became not only rock’s most famous chronicler of city life, but had an indelible influence on generations of rock bands such as REM, Nirvana and Sonic Youth, among many others.

The music world is paying tribute yesterday to Reed. David Bowie, Bryan Adams, Patti Smith, members of KISS, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine, and record producer Simon Cowell were among whose who paid tribute to Reed’s legacy.

Having left the Velvet Underground in 1970, many regard Reed’s solo works as his greater achievement.

Transformer, produced by Bowie, in 1972, included “Perfect Day” and “Walk on the Wild Side, arguably his best-known song.

But for all the accolades, not everyone was a fan of Reed’s work.