LOU REED – ROCK N ROLL ANIMAL LP – Nr MINT 1974 VELVET UNDERGROUND

Lou Reed – Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal
(RCA Records  1974  APL10472  Canadian Press)

Gatefold Sleeve in Very Good+ condition
– some wear to edges/corners & some ringwear/rubbing – tape mark in bottom left corner

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)

Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer and songwriter. After serving as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, his solo career spanned several decades. The Velvet Underground was a commercial failure in the late 1960s, but the group has gained a considerable cult following in the years since its demise and has gone on to become one of the most widely cited and influential bands of the era – hence Brian Eno’s famous quote that while the Velvet Underground’s debut album only sold 30,000 copies, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”

After his departure from the group, Reed began a solo career in 1972. He had a hit the following year with “Walk on the Wild Side”, but subsequently lacked the mainstream commercial success its chart status seemed to indicate. Reed’s work as a solo artist frustrated critics wishing for a return of the Velvet Underground. In 1975, Reed released a double album of feedback loops, Metal Machine Music, upon which he later commented, “No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive.” Reed was known for his distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics and for pioneering and coining the term ostrich guitar tuning.

In 2008, Reed married performance artist Laurie Anderson. In May 2013, Reed underwent a liver transplant in Cleveland. Afterwards he claimed on his website to be “bigger and stronger” than ever, but on October 27, 2013, he died from liver disease at his home in Southampton, New York, at the age of 71.

Rock n Roll Animal is a live album by Lou Reed, released in 1974. In its original form, it features five songs from different periods of his creative career, including several songs by the Velvet Underground. The songs are all re-arranged into a powerful hard rock set. The musicians were Pentti Glan (drums) and Prakash John (bass), Ray Colcord (keyboards), and Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter on guitars (the two guitarists would later form the second Alice Cooper band, first on Welcome to My Nightmare, which also featured Glan, Colcord and Prakash John). The album was recorded live on December 21, 1973, at Howard Stein’s Academy of Music in New York.

Further excerpts from the same concert were released in 1975 as Lou Reed Live (between the remastered Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live the entire show has been released, albeit in a different order than the original concert). This live album’s stereo mix differs from its counterpart in that guitarist Dick Wagner is heard on the left channel, and Steve Hunter is on the right; this arrangement is reversed on Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.

Track listing

All songs written by Lou Reed unless otherwise indicated.

1. “Intro/Sweet Jane” (Steve Hunter, Reed) – 7:55
2. “Heroin” – 13:05
3. “White Light/White Heat” – 5:15
4. “Lady Day” – 4:00
5. “Rock ‘n’ Roll” – 10:17

Personnel

• Lou Reed – vocals
• Pentti “Whitey” Glan – drums, percussion
• Steve Hunter – guitars
• Prakash John – bass, vocals
• Dick Wagner – guitar, vocal
• Ray Colcord – keyboards