There were at least three Lou Reeds. First and most enduring was the front man of the Velvet Underground, the greaser poet from Long Island who had a cabbie’s voice and a knack for writing songs about drugs and sex and salvation that sounded like the gutter side of 1960s rock. Then came Reed the freelance auteur, churning out spotty solo albums and delivering gnomic anti-interviews to the press. (This same Reed licensed songs to The Simpsons and Beverly Hills 90210, and appeared in ads for Ameri
DYLAN JONES: When Andy Warhol and his entourage - his Superstars - hit a New York nightspot, they took centre stage: a raucous, cross-dressing, wired up, spaced out collection of freaks.
Lou Reed and John Cale’s pioneering band created modern music, according to David Bowie, whose biographer has now chronicled their group and their legacy