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Copyright © 2002-2004
by James P. Hauser except where otherwise noted.  All rights reserved.

The Blues Connections
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The Velvet Underground

The sixties band The Velvet Underground created dark, powerful, experimental music. It was "alternative music" years before anyone ever thought about putting those two words together. If you forget about The Beatles, the Velvets may be the most influential group in the history of rock and roll. They have influenced everyone from David Bowie, The Pretenders, and R.E.M. to bands that are hardly known but still very influential themselves including Joy Division and The Melvins. Their leader, Lou Reed, is known as the godfather of punk. And...hey, doesn't the great song "Oh Sweet Nuthin'" qualify the Velvets as the originators of the power ballad?

So who is it that influenced the Velvets? Reed once fingered his primary influences as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and Archie Shepp, all part of the avant garde free jazz movement. But Reed and other members of the band were also influenced by rhythm and blues. In particular, he has cited the influences of soul great James Brown and (believe it or not) the  R&B-based style of vocal harmonizing called doo wop. Both Reed and his bandmate, guitarist Sterling Morrison, loved the R&B of Ike and Tina Turner. And the Velvets' drummer, Maureen Tucker, idolized Bo Diddley.

Almost all of the great rock bands from the sixties recorded versions of classic blues and R&B songs, but the Velvet Underground did not. Still, you can hear the influence of rhythm and blues on the group's music. For example, their song "The Gift" includes a reworking of the classic riff from the Booker T. and the MGs hit "Green Onions". And on "There She Goes Again", they borrow a guitar line from Marvin Gaye's "Hitch Hike".

Read on below for more of The Velvet Underground's blues connections.

More of theVelvet Underground's blues connections:

From Postman to Pusher

Mareen (aka Moe) Tucker, The Velvet Underground's drummer, was (and still is) a big fan of the sixties girl groups. After the Velvet Underground busted up, she spent almost ten years away from the music scene before kick-starting her new career as a solo act in 1980 with a 45 rpm single which had covers of Chuck Berry's "Around and Around" on one side and the Shirelles' "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" on the other. She did another girl group cover on her 1991 album I Spent a Week There the Other Night with her version of the Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me". And then she went all out in the late 1990s with an extended play album of girl group covers entitled Grl-Grup which contained versions of the Ronettes' "Be My Baby", the Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is To Love Him", and two songs from the Crystals--"Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Then He Kissed Me". The Teddy Bears weren't really a girl group, but they (along with the Ronettes and the Crystals) were masterminded by a man who sure wouldn't dispute being called the king of the girl groups, Phil Spector.

Tucker's love for the girl groups goes all the way back to her days with the Velvet Underground. And, according to her, Lou Reed and the other members of the band also enjoyed the sounds of the girl groups. Some of you Velvets' fans might find all of this hard to believe, but you can find evidence that Reed was influenced by the girl groups. For example, he played Marvelettes records as a college radio DJ (according to a biography of him by Victor Bockris entitled Transformer). Also, he made a reference to another girl group--Martha and the Vandellas--on the Velvet Underground's "Temptation Inside Your Heart".

While still together as a band, the Velvet Underground didn't reveal their girl group influences to the public ("Temptation Inside Your Heart" was not released until long after the band had broken up) because the lightweight, innocent pop sounds of a group like the Mavelettes didn't fit in with the Velvets' dark and heavy image. After all, they offered themselves up as an alternative to the hugely successful pop groups like the Beatles (who, incidentally, recorded a cover of the Marvelettes' hit "Please Mr. Postman"). Who knows, maybe the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman", a song about waiting for a letter to be delivered by your postman, inspired Reed to write "Waiting for the Man", a song about waiting for drugs to be delivered by your pusher???

Magic and Loss

Lou Reed was a good friend of Doc Pomus, the great songwriter who teamed up with Mort Shuman to write many classic rhythm & blues and rock songs. Pomus wrote strings of hits for folks like Elvis Presley ("Viva Las Vegas", "Surrender", "Little Sister", "She's Not You") and the Drifters ("This Magic Moment", "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Sweets for My Sweet"). His death was a main source of inspiration for Lou Reed's album Magic and Loss. Reed also recorded Pomus's "This Magic Moment" for an album honoring the great songwriter entitled Till the Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus. It's a great little record, loaded with performances from R&B stars including "Save the Last Dance for Me" by Aaron Neville, "Blinded by Love" by B.B. King, "There Must be a Better World Somewhere" by Irma Thomas, and "Still in Love" by Solomon Burke.

Pomus was an excellent white blues singer before turning to songwiting as his full time occupation. He also helped put together the great lineup that backed up John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as the Blues Brothers Band. He was a keeper of the blues flame throughout his life, and in 1991 he became the first white man to receive the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Award.

The AKA Blues Connection

Musicians Index.