Book : Lou Reed A Life - DeCurtis, Anthony

-Titulo Original : Lou Reed A Life

-Fabricante :

Back Bay Books

-Descripcion Original:

The essential biography of one of musics most influential icons: Lou Reed. As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating noise, violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans and inspiring generations of musicians. But while his iconic status may be fixed, the man himself was anything but. Lou Reeds life was a transformers odyssey. Eternally restless and endlessly hungry for new experiences, Reed reinvented his persona, his sound, even his sexuality time and again. A man of contradictions and extremes, he was fiercely independent yet afraid of being alone, artistically fearless yet deeply paranoid, eager for commercial success yet disdainful of his own triumphs. Channeling his jagged energy and literary sensibility into classic songs - like Walk on the Wild Side and Sweet Jane - and radically experimental albums alike, Reed remained desperately true to his artistic vision, wherever it led him. Now, just a few years after Reeds death, Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, who knew Reed and interviewed him extensively, tells the provocative story of his complex and chameleonic life. With unparalleled access to dozens of Reeds friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis tracks Reeds five-decade career through the accounts of those who knew him and through Reeds most revealing testimony, his music. We travel deep into his defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their groundbreaking work, and revel in Reeds relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Laurie Anderson. Gritty, intimate, and unflinching, Lou Reed is an illuminating tribute to one of the most incendiary artists of our time. Review If the goal of a biography is to bring its subject back to life, Lou Reed, DeCurtiss sympathetic but never fawning book, succeeds...Carefully researched and thoughtfully written, Lou Reed is the best Reed biography to date. New York Times Book ReviewDeCurtis has given us a thorough and vivid portrait of an artist who, he shows us, was even darker than we knew. The New York Review of BooksAnthony DeCurtis was one of the few music critics Lou Reed read and whose company he enjoyed. After reading this sublime and subtle book, the mystery of Lous respect for Anthony is revealed. Anthony is a great story teller, a writers writer, turning pain into beauty the way Lou did in his songs. Bono I am personally familiar with the depth, seriousness and sensitivity of Anthony DeCurtiss writing, and, of course, knew Lou Reed and felt the impact of his coruscating work. A brilliant artist has found a biographer with the insight to, as Lou said, pass through fire and be a definitive interpreter of both his music and his life. Sting Lou Reed is Lou Reed! Iggy PopAn eloquent account of a harrowing life transformed by love in the end. Anthony DeCurtis does a brilliant job of synthesizing the disparate parts of Lou Reeds life into an insightful, moving narrative. I highly recommend it. Suzanne VegaWhen most people think of Lou Reed, they picture the black, rotting heart of rock and roll, full of dissonance, decadence and decay. But as Anthony DeCurtis makes clear in his new book, behind the image and the rumors, Lou was one thing: a writer, a man who spent his life telling the absolute, painful truth in his songs - the truth about himself, the scenes he observed, and the world at large. His words were so powerful that the Velvet Underground had to invent a new musical language to match them. Im not the first musician to pledge allegiance to Lou and the Velvets, and I wont be the last. Read this book, and explore the f*cking genius that was Lou Reed. Peter Buck, co-founder and lead guitarist of R.E.M.Anthony DeCurtis captures the soul and the essence of Lou