Lou Reed

Rock Musician

Name at birth: Lewis Allen Reed

Guitarist Lou Reed co-founded and wrote most of the songs for the New York rock group The Velvet Underground (1965-70), the influential band which recorded such cult favorites as "Heroin,", "Sweet Jane" and "Sister Ray." The Velvet Underground, at first associated with Andy Warhol and the singer Nico, was never a huge popular success, but it has been credited with influencing a generation of punk and post-punk rockers in the 1970s and '80s. During the '70s Reed and David Bowie were among the top acts in "glam rock," a theatrical style of gender-bending rock and roll. Reed's solo hits from the '70s include "Walk On The Wild Side" and "Street Hassle," as well as re-vamped versions of several of his Velvet Underground songs. By the end of the 1990s, Reed was an elder statesman of rock and roll, a mature songwriter with a reputation for thoughtful urban ballads. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Other innovative rockers of Reed's era include Frank Zappa, John Lennon and Joey Ramone.