Lou Reed
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Year:
2015
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Inducted by:
Patti Smith
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Category:
Performers
Introduction
Frank, brutal and brilliant.
Lou Reed had everything you could want in a rockstar: boundary-smashing guitar solos, a dry, combative voice and a tough as nails persona that never impeded his vulnerable songwriting.
Patti Smith Inducts Lou Reed
Patti Smith Inducts Lou Reed at the 2015 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony-
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Patti Smith Inducts Lou Reed00:06:57 -
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Laurie Anderson Acceptance Speech on Behalf of Lou Reed00:12:04 -
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"Vicious"00:03:13 -
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"Satellite of Love"00:03:43
Hall of Fame Essay
2015
Lou Reed’s songs, both with the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist, constitute a body of work that ranks with Dylan and Lennon-McCartney as among the most significant and influential songwriting catalogues of the twentieth century.
Reed was both an artistic exhibitionist and an intensely private man; a restless experimental soul and an ardent fan dedicated to the most elemental, even conservative, principles of rock & roll; a writer with the highest literary aspirations and a guitarist with a boundless love of distortion and noise.
He was the friend of New York City.
