The “great” guitarist Lou Reed said everyone should copy: “It’s not all about soloing”
Every warrior needs their weapon, and the humble six-string guitar has been the weapon of choice for rock and rollers since their very dawn back in the 1950s, but that is not to say that every guitarist wields that power in the same way. In fact, figures like Lou Reed were always searching for a way to reinvent the power of the guitar.
Unjustly, Reed is rarely considered among the great guitar heroes of his generation. Admittedly, that generation did include the vast swathes of countercultural revolutionaries who completely reinvented the landscape of guitar music back in the 1960s, but Reed’s omission is probably best explained by the songwriter’s insatiable penchant for subverting expectations. Nobody else sounded like The Velvet Underground during mid-1960s New York and, by extension, no self-respecting rock devotee was attempting to play guitar like Lou Reed.
Despite the wider world’s ignorance to his excellence, Reed’s guitar stylings were utterly essential in carving out the experimental noise of The Velvet Underground and, in the modern age, there is scarcely a noise rock or alternative guitarist who does not owe some part of their skills to the trailblazing talents of the songwriter. One of the key reasons why Reed was not accepted into the realm of rock’s guitar heroes during those early years, however, might simply come from the fact that he rarely paid attention to rock guitarists.
Rather than worshipping the likes of Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix, like every other guitarist during the 1960s, Reed’s six-stringed influences cast a much broader net. Speaking to Guitar World back in 1998, he reflected upon his Velvet Underground-era listening habits. “I’d been listening to Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman,” he shared, citing two titans of avant-garde jazz.
Adding, “Of course I was not trained to play like them. I couldn’t read and write music. I couldn’t even begin to think of having technique like that. But I certainly had the energy—and a good ear.”
The Velvet Underground certainly tried to emulate the experimental energy of those avant-garde masters, but Reed’s sonic repertoire also took heavy doses of inspiration from the realm of soul and R&B – another world which mainstream rock guitarists were often guilty of ignoring. “That’s what I was listening to,” Reed continued. “Along with guitar players like James Burton and Steve Cropper.”
Cropper, in particular, goes down among the most criminally underrated guitarists of the 20th century, but, as Reed says, “Who doesn’t try to copy Cropper? He’s a great guitar player.” During his time with the Stax Records house band, Booker T and the M.G.’s, Cropper lent his guitar talents to some of the most iconic soul and R&B records of all time, stretching all the way from ‘Green Onions’ to ‘(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay’. Yet, he is rarely afforded a mention among the greatest guitarists of that era.
“You know, it’s not all about soloing,” Reed explained, tying Cropper’s inspiration to the work of The Velvet Underground. “It’s about those parts that guys like Burton and Cropper played. And the Velvet Underground, we were about parts.”
Adding, “Although some of the solo work grew out of having discovered feedback on electric guitar and liking that. I was just trying to get the good feedback and get rid of the bad feedback.”
Like Cropper, Reed’s guitar talents often go unjustly overlooked, and their lack of solos certainly contributes to that. When you really dig into their lasting impact and rhythmic genius, though, both players now boast an influence that has far outlived the many soloists clogging up the airwaves back in the 1960s.
