There are a few contenders in the category of Most Influential UK Music Partnership of the 1960s.
John and Paul, Mick and Keith, enough said.
Ray and Dave Davies, warring brothers and godfathers of psychedelia, hard rock, heavy metal and Britpop.
Roger Waters and David Gilmour, less so.
A few years later you could make a case for the two Brians in Roxy Music, then Bowie and Mick Ronson maybe.
But then there’s the case for the Welshman who hooked up with an American in mid ‘60s Manhattan, thus making them technically ineligible for this list. But their influence is as great as any of them. Lou Reed and John Cale from The Velvet Undeground.
Reed brought the subject matter, the lyrics and the attitude. Cale brought something else entirely, from outside of contemporary music. With a talent for the viola, he’d arrived in New York from Wales where he’d been a member of the National Youth Orchestra. In the US he immersed himself in the avant-garde, meeting and working with contemporary composers such as LaMonte Young and John Cage.
His partnership with Reed yielded music that is still shaping what we hear now. The energy of rock with the adventurism of the avant-garde. To realise how profound Cale’s contribution was, you only have to listen to the third album after he and Reed parted ways. It’s very listenable, but there’s no X-Factor.
Before the Velvets, people simply weren’t writing songs such as Heroin, Venus in Furs or Sister Ray. Afterwards, all bets were off. This is Philip Sherburne’s view:
“The dream of the underground as an autonomous zone takes root here: a sense of style that would pave the way for glam rock; a sense of nihilism that would bulldoze a clear path for punk; an uncompromisingly avant-garde sound that would lead to post-punk and beyond. There was their subject matter, decadent and depraved: whips and furs, back-alley blowjobs, tragic heroines, and also heroin—lots of heroin. The Velvets invented a whole new kind of cool, their sound raw and shambolic. The record was grotty and lo-fi, the sound of a reel-to-reel tape retreating into a turtle shell. And yet they had noise, much from their avant-gardist John Cale, a classically trained violist who turned his education into droning, seesawing, nails-on-a-chalkboard frequencies.”
Well, there was a bit more to Cale’s contribution than noise terrorist as his long solo career, peppered with highlights, underlines. Wales’ finest living musician? Certainly the most influential. Albums such as Fear and Paris 1919 stand comparison with any other solo artist from the ‘seventies. As significantly, he appeared Zelig-like as a musician, collaborator or producer with the Stooges, Nick Drake, Nico, Patti Smith, the Modern Lovers and the Happy Mondays amongst many others.
And now he’s 80. Treasure him while he’s still here. This episode is a selection of his work wearing those many hats.
Tracklist:
I’m waiting for the man, The Velvet Underground
Fear is a man’s best friend, John Cale
Andalucia, John Cale
Northern sky, Nick Drake
The janitor of lunacy, Nico
Buffalo ballet, John Cale
No fun, The Stooges
Spinning away, John Cale and Brian Eno
The gift, The Velvet Underground
Free money, Patti Smith
I keep a close watch, John Cale