How a Jewish kid named Lou Reed left ‘the most boring place on earth’ to become ‘King of New York’
The career of the legendary founder of the Velvet Underground was filled with Jewish references and collaborators
Lou Reed
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Music The real Lou Reed was a lot funnier than you’d think
The purportedly cantankerous Jewish rocker wanted to be remembered for his sense of humor
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Culture How to get closer to Lou Reed than you ever could in real life
‘Caught Between the Twisted Stars’ features artifacts from every phase of the artist’s career
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of U2
While U2 is still largely considered one of, if not the greatest rock band in the world, the group’s singer and frontman, Bono, is not quite the beloved figure he was when the band first exploded on the scene in the mid-1980s. His hobnobbing with world and corporate leaders is very un-rock ’n’ roll, and…
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Culture On Lou Reed’s birthday, remembering his epic Seder
Editor’s note: Lou Reed would have turned 79 on March 2, 2021. In honor of him and the upcoming holiday we have republished this piece, which first appeared in March of 2013, about the singer-songwriter’s historic “Downtown Seder.” Lou Reed is standing in front of a room full of Jews on Varick Street on a…
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Culture Lou Reed Was A Regular Jewish Kid — And Cultural Rebel For The Ages
Lou Reed: A Life By Anthony DeCurtis Little, Brown and Company, 528 pages, $32 At first glance, Lewis Allan Reed wasn’t all that different from the other middle-class Jewish lads he grew up with in 1950s Freeport, New York. He was a diligent student and an avid tennis player; he liked to make weekend forays…
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Culture The Velvet Underground & Nico: A (Belated) 50th Anniversary Reading List
I remember the first time I ever really listened to Lou Reed. I was around 12 years old and I had recently come into possession of one of the old record players collecting dust at my grandmother’s house. I owned (really, stole from my dad) three records – “Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderly,” “Led Zeppelin II,”…
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Culture Was Lou Reed A Lot More Jewish Than We Thought He Was?
Lou Reed’s archives are headed to the New York Public Library, courtesy of Reed’s widow, performance artist Laurie Anderson. There are already two display cases of items on view in the lobby of the library’s main branch at 42nd Street, where Reed scholars or the merely curious can read the handwritten lyrics to the song,…
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