Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story

Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story
Victor Bockris

‘A triumph’ - Time OutTransformer is the only complete and comprehensive telling of the Lou Reed story.Legendary songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed passed away on the 27th October 2013, but his musical influence is assured. Now discover the true story of the Velvet Underground pioneer in this update of Bockris’s classic biography.Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story follows the great songwriter and singer through the series of transformations that define each period of his fifty year career. It opens with the teenage electroshock treatments that dominated his memories of childhood and never stops revealing layer after layer of this complex and often anguished artist and man. Transformer is based on Lou’s collaborations with the hardest and most romantic artists of his times, from John Cale, Andy Warhol, and Nico, through David Bowie, Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson and the ghost of Edgar Alan Poe. Rippling underneath everything he did are Lou’s relationships with his various muses, from his college sweetheart to his three wives (and one drag queen).Leading Lou Reed biographer, Victor Bockris - who knew Lou throughout the Rachel Years, from Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal to the Bells - updates his original biography in the wake of Lou’s death. Through new interviews and photos, he reveals the many transformations of this larger-than-life character, including his final shift from Rock Monster to the Prince Charming he had always wanted to be in the twenty years he spent with the love of his life, Laurie Anderson . Except with Lou, you could never really know what might happen next…Including previously unseen photographs and contributions from Lou’s innermost circle and collaborators that include similarly esteemed artists such as Andy Warhol and David Bowie, Transformer is as captivating and vivid a read as befits an American master.

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Copyright (#u38abb036-9b1c-55df-a553-8dc550b33194)

Harper

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First published in Great Britain by Hutchinson 1994

This edition Harper 2014

© Victor Bockris 1994, 2014

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Cover photograph © Simone Cecchetti/Corbis

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Source ISBN: 9780007581894

Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780007581900

Version: 2014-10-05

Praise (#u38abb036-9b1c-55df-a553-8dc550b33194)

“Bockris’s new work is instantly recognizable as the heavyweight psychological powerplay Lou Reed’s legend deserves … Reed is effectively pinned like a butterfly”—Q

“Transformer depicts the singer’s life as a series of death-defying second acts”—New York Times Book Review

“A very readable portrait … Blending informed biographical narrative with abundant quotes and a dishy, conversational style, Bockris captures the many moods—and mood swings—of a true rock and roll chameleon”—Entertainment Weekly

“Transformer is an even more staggering brief than Wired (about John Belushi)”—Spin

“Bockris provides insight into the private life that led Reed to create many of rock’s memorable songs, including “Heroin” and “Walk on the Wild Side”—Publishers Weekly

“One of the funniest and most memorable time-lined rock documents around”—Philadelphia City Paper

Also by Victor Bockris (#u38abb036-9b1c-55df-a553-8dc550b33194)

Muhammad Ali in Fighter’s Heaven

Keith Richards: The Biography

Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie (with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein)

Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story (with Gerard Malanga)

Warhol: The Biography

With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker

Patti Smith: A Biography

What’s Welsh for Zen: The Autobiography of John Cale (with John Cale)

Beat Punks

Rebel Heart: An American Rock ’n’ Roll Journey (with Bebe Buell)

The Burroughs–Warhol Affair

Burroughs Reloaded (photographs)

Dedication (#u38abb036-9b1c-55df-a553-8dc550b33194)

This book is dedcated to Barney Hoskyns, Gerard Malanga, Bob Gruen, and Legs McNeil

Contents

Cover (#u2215fd26-5ca5-55f4-84f1-4e4bc673fcb1)

Title Page (#u529431ee-4ddf-5c07-a9c7-dba3f76220da)

Copyright (#ulink_5ccb2ac4-c46e-5c9f-b4ea-6ff5fe8f63e6)

Praise (#ulink_ffbc3075-8b84-5269-981b-5f3af96f9409)