The Velvet Underground

Probably no other rock band has had as huge a gap between its commercial impact and its artistic influence as The Velvet Underground. They had an enormous affect on subsequent generations of rockers but were strictly a cult band during their time as a working unit in the 1960s and early '70s.

The roots of the band lay in an embryonic outfit called The Primitives that began playing in 1964 and included singer/songwriter/guitarist Lou Reed and violist/bassist/keyboardist John Cale. Reed's background was in rock 'n' roll and poetry (he studied with Delmore Schwartz) while Cale came from the classical and avant-garde worlds, having worked with groundbreaking minimalist composer La Monte Young.

All these influences came together by the time that band evolved into The Velvet Underground, which played its first gig in 1965, with Sterling Morrison on lead guitar and Maureen Tucker on drums. With a sound simultaneously sophisticated and primal that encompassed everything from free-form freak-outs to delicate ballads, they became a regular presence at New York City clubs.

Artist/filmmaker Andy Warhol became their manager in 1965, getting them a deal with Verve Records and producing their seminal 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Nico (a.k.a. Christa Paffgen) was a German model who Warhol convinced the band to bring aboard as their deep-voiced, heavily accented chanteuse, lending even more idiosyncrasy to their sound.

Reed's lyrics about fetishistic sex and drug culture didn't exactly make the band a household name, but The Velvet Underground quickly became known to critics and fans as a band at the leading edge of '60s rock. Nico was gone by 1968's White Light/White Heat, which emphasized the edgy, aggressive side of the band's sound and eschewed the ballads.

Conflicts between Reed and Cale resulted in Cale's subsequent departure, and he was replaced by Doug Yule on the group's third, self-titled album. Perhaps consequently, the stylistic balance shifted in the opposite direction, moving more towards understated melodic tunes. The same lineup released Loaded the following year.

The final VU album to feature Reed, it was the band's most straight-ahead rock record. The tracks "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll" would eventually give the band a posthumous presence on rock radio in the '70s and beyond. Reed left the band after the album's release, and two years later began a long, fruitful solo career.

The post-Reed Velvet Underground did some touring with Yule handling vocals, and the band's story ended on a strange note with Squeeze, a 1973 album credited to The Velvet Underground but featuring only Yule and a few session musicians.