What was Lou Reed’s favourite rock ‘n’ roll album?
He may have helped shape rock and roll in his own way, but Lou Reed was a fan of the genre long before he began making his own music inspired by it. Born in the 1940s, he grew up during the explosion of radical new innovators in music and would have been excited by the shift into a new era of popular sound.
Reed wouldn’t have had the career he had without the constant influence of rock and roll, particularly in the early years of his band, The Velvet Underground, which took the sounds of ‘50s rock and roll and mutated them into the punkish fusion that they were known for on their first few albums. Of course, later in his career, Reed would dabble with various other styles that felt like a diversion from his roots, but that doesn’t change the fact that the music that he grew up admiring was integral to helping define the foundations of his work.
While some of his favourites included the likes of Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and Bo Diddley, Reed constantly indulged in rock and roll music and found himself drawing plenty of inspiration from these artists in his formative years. However, above all was Little Richard, an artist Lou Reed believed was untouchable in both his performance, style and appearance.
Reed would go on record to declare his admiration for Little Richard on many occasions, stating that he felt there were no others who possessed the same level of brilliance despite having taken many cues from him in the first place. “I was using fashion to have fun and play,” Reed once declared. “I guess I influenced people, but not as much as the guy who was first out there doing it. The first one has got to be Little Richard, flat out of the box. You could never catch him!”
However, if you asked Reed what his favourite record by Richard was, then he’d deliver a response that covered plenty of bases. Compiling every release from his time with Speciality Records between 1955 and 1959, The Speciality Sessions is a 4LP box set of 73 songs, outtakes and demos that the self-described ‘Architect of Rock and Roll’ recorded, and is essentially a compendium of everything a Little Richard fan could ask for.
During this time, Richard recorded hits such as ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’, but on The Speciality Sessions, we’re given an insight into how the earliest incarnations of these tracks sounded through unearthed demo tapes and initial takes. If you’re keen to know just how electrifying Richard was in the studio, even on his first takes of songs, this is the record you need to listen to. If you’re interested in how his earliest live performances and radio appearances sounded, then you’ll get a brilliant account of that as well.
It may not have the feeling of a polished studio album, and often you’ll hear the same songs twice over the course of the record, but it’s easy to grasp just why Reed fell in love with Little Richard as an artist from listening to this archival treasure trove of his work at the start of his illustrious career. Reed knew just how much of a talent Richard was from the beginning, and this is the most compelling proof that he was right.
