The Velvet Underground

1964, New York. Lou Reed (song, guitar) and John Cale (bass, singing, piano...), two avant-garde musicians, meet and agree to form a band. Shortly thereafter, Sterling Morrison (guitar) and Maureen Tucker (percussions) joined the ranks. The Velvet Underground was born.
The following year the artist "Pop Art" Andy Warhol became the group's manager. Thanks to his fame he won a contract with Verve Records for the first Velvet album. Warhol strongly suggests Nico's presence in singing, which Reed disapproves. The latter, however, will eventually give him three songs. In 1967, for example, Velvet released his first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. Warhol made the record's huge cover: a simple self-adhesive banana that once took off reveals a pink peeled banana. Next to it you can read "peel slowly and see". The album does not know a great because it was quickly removed from the sale because of a right to the image. Director Eric Emerson, who appears on the back of the cover, assures that his image was used without his consent. Once the problem is solved the disc comes out, but sells little, making the first edition a collection piece.
Separated from Warhol and Nico, The Velvet Underground starts on tour and gives a good share of improvisations, these will give birth to White Light/White Heat , the band's second album recorded in just two days under the guidance of Tom Wilson (Frank Zappa , Bob Dylan ...). White Light/White Heat is a reference album that looks great at experimentations as evidenced by the long and tortured Sister Ray, to name but a few. During the birth of the album tensions appeared between Reed and Cale, the two thinking heads of the group, the second not accepting the Pop inclinations of the first. Cale was ousted in 1968 and replaced by Doug Yule , which is more consistent with Reed's musical vision.
1969, new year, new album for the Velvet . Lou Reed is alone in command and delivers a disc to the production licked, quieter, more sung. Except for the psychedelic The Murder Mistery, there is nothing left of the group's vanguardism, which despite this still does not take off in sales.
Victim of the purging of MGM, Verve's mother house, the Velvet finds himself at Atlantic for his fourth album, Loaded. Lou Reed, tired and challenged by Doug Yule leaves the band for a solo career a month before the release of the album, not without having composed all the tracks of the record. Doug Yule took over Reed's torch and the Velvet fell in crumbs with Morrison's departure and sent him back from Tucker. Walter Powers and Ian Paice (Deep Purple) appeared in the band for Squeeze in 1972. The departure of manager Steve Sesnik the following year marked the end of Velvet Underground.
Two decades later, Reed, Cale, Morisson and Tucker went back on stage in the first part of U2 and had a new album on the project. But tensions between Reed and Cale are still present, and Morisson's death in 1995 put an end to this idea.
More than forty years after his debut The Velvet Underground remains a cornerstone of Rock, a source of inspiration for many artists through his poetic, provocative and avant-garde side.