John Cale - The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

In early 1965, he co-founded The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed, recruiting Reed's college friend Sterling Morrison and Cale's flatmate Angus Maclise to complete the initial line-up. Cale left the band in September 1968, due in part to creative disagreements with Reed.

The very first commercially available recording of the Velvet Underground, an instrumental track called "Loop" given away with Aspen Magazine, was a feedback experiment written and conducted by Cale. His creative relationship with Reed was integral to the sound of the Velvet Underground's first two albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico (recorded in 1966, released in 1967) and White Light/White Heat (recorded in 1967, released in 1968). On these albums he plays viola, bass guitar and piano, and sings occasional backing vocals. White Light/White Heat features Cale on organ (on "Sister Ray") as well as two vocal turns: "Lady Godiva's Operation", an experimental song where he shares lead vocal duties with Reed, and "The Gift", a long spoken word piece written by Reed. Though Cale co-wrote the music to several songs, his most distinctive contribution is the electrically amplified viola.

Cale also played on Nico's 1967 debut album, Chelsea Girl, which features songs co-written by Velvet Underground members Cale, Reed and Morrison, who also feature as musicians. Cale makes his debut as lyricist on "Winter Song" and "Little Sister".

Apart from appearing on these three albums, he also played organ on the track "Ocean" during the practice sessions to produce demos for the band's fourth album Loaded, nearly two years after he left the band. He was enticed back into the studio by the band's manager, Steve Sesnick, "in a half-hearted attempt to reunite old comrades", as Cale put it. Although he does not appear on the finished album, the demo recording of "Ocean" was included in the 1997 Loaded: Fully Loaded Edition re-issue. Finally, five previously unreleased tracks recorded in late 1967 and early 1968 were included on the outtakes compilations VU (1985) and Another View (1986).

Arguably, the artistic frictions between Cale and Reed are what shaped the group's early sound much more than any other members. The pair often had heated disagreements about the direction of the group, and this tension was central to their later collaborations. When Cale left, he seemed to take the more experimentalist tendencies with him, as is noticeable in comparing the noise-rock experimental White Light/White Heat (which Cale co-created) to the more pop-oriented The Velvet Underground, recorded after his departure.