As Lou Reed was dying, he was visited by his friend Julian Schnabel. The painter remembered, "We were in the swimming pool and I was holding him in my arms, and he said to me, 'You know, I was on the beach with my dad, and I put my hand in his hand and he smacked me in the face.'"

Schnabel was fascinated and disturbed to learn that some of Reed's final thoughts were of his relationship with his father, describing that relationship in a sense that resembled how many others have felt the musician himself treated them. When Reed had a liver transplant, the Onion ran an article with the headline, "New Liver Complains of Difficulty Working with Lou Reed."

Veteran rock writer Anthony DeCurtis has produced a biography (first published in 2017, out now in paperback) that doesn't try to penetrate too deeply into Reed's psyche. Although he was, by Reed's own account, the one journalist the rocker trusted, DeCurtis admits Reed wouldn't have wanted the book written and would certainly not have cooperated if it was written during his lifetime.

Lou Reed: A Life keeps a respectful distance from its subject's inner life, which is fine since, after all, Reed was an artist who expressed many of his preoccupations in his music. One of the great services DeCurtis provides is to remind us just how much of that music there is, and to provide a good map for fans ready to take a deeper dive into Reed's discography.

Raised in New York (how could it be otherwise?), Reed broke into music with a job writing songs for Pickwick Records, which DeCurtis describes as "a budget label whose factory-style work-for-hire ethos made the sweat-equity, no-nonsense hit-making of the Brill Building seem like Mount Olympus."

His first collaboration with John Cale came when the label had to assemble an actual band to play a live version of "The Ostrich," a song Reed wrote in a failed attempt to instigate a national dance craze. The two hit it off, and soon Reed was drafting his Syracuse University classmate Sterling Morrison to form a band named the Velvet Underground after a 1963 book about illicit sexual fetishes.

When their drummer graduated to a successful folk-rock band, they drafted a friend's younger sister, Maureen Tucker, to take the skins. With demos of future classics including "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting for the Man" already in the can, the Velvet Underground's classic lineup debuted at a high school show in 1965.

The combination of Reed's eye-opening songs, Cale's classically-trained flourish, and the primitive drive of Tucker's drumming soon attracted the attention of New York hipsters including Andy Warhol, who brought Edie Sedgwick to check the band out and quickly drew them into his Factory orbit.

DeCurtis is wonderfully informative about the band's complex relationship with Warhol. As a connoisseur of the avant-garde, Cale was immediately rapt. Reed appreciated the Factory's liberating scene (including its queer culture and its heavy drug use), but he pushed back when Warhol wanted too much control. It would be the band, not Warhol, who would sign the Velvet Underground's record deal...and while they'd work with Nico at Warhol's request, she'd be billed as a separate artist (hence "the Velvet Underground and Nico"), and she wouldn't get to sing all the songs.

The story of the Velvet Underground, and Lou Reed's later solo work, makes for an amazing example of how the record industry used to work at, perhaps, its best. Although the Velvet Underground were never commercially successful, they had immense artistic importance and cachet among their peers (Brian Eno famously said that every one of the 30,000 people who bought their debut must have gone on to start a band).

They produced four studio albums, only the first two with Cale. All are important, but there's no question that the quality declined with each release, and Reed decided he'd be better off on his own. (Cale's replacement Doug Yule subsequently led the band for one unremarkable album cycle.)

For a guy who supposedly doesn't play well with others, DeCurtis reminds us, Reed actually kept his finger pretty well on the zeitgeist for his entire life and collaborated with numerous acolytes. Most importantly, David Bowie produced Reed's sophomore LP Transformer (1972), although it was Mick Ronson of the Spiders from Mars who did more to shape the album's sound.

"Walk on the Wild Side" became Reed's biggest hit and signature song, instantly codifying the man's mythos: an affectionate observer and stalwart defender of the '60s fringe, the badass rocker who could write a killer hook. DeCurtis articulately describes the song's significance.

"Walk on the Wild Side" is more than a song. It's a slogan, and an invitation. Its title distills Reed's primary symbolic value: to expose people to worlds they might never have become aware of otherwise. [...] The phrase "soundtrack of an era" is tossed around indiscriminately, but "Walk on the Wild Side" more than lives up to it. It gave a name to a burgeoning reality.

"When I die," Reed said accurately, "they'll play 'Walk on the Wild Side.'"

The success of the song and the album began a cycle that would continue for the rest of Reed's career: he'd create something accessible that would bring him back into the public conversation, then would push back with a challenging experiment. Eventually, the public learned to embrace Reed's roller-coaster career.

The most infamous push-back was Metal Machine Music (1975), four sides of wordless feedback, almost unbelievably given unedited release on a major label. It's perhaps the best-known experimental album of the rock era, and as DeCurtis notes, it both achieved its goal of re-establishing Reed as a pure iconoclast and had a greater artistic impact that even Reed could have imagined it would.

On the other side of the spectrum, there were albums like New Sensations (1984), with a single ("I Love You, Suzanne") and video that made Reed, against all odds, an MTV presence.

Then there were the albums in between: the serious-minded concept albums that recalled the Velvet Underground's range and power. Bruce Springsteen made an apt vocal cameo on the sweeping Street Hassle (1978), The Blue Mask (1982) is a searing chronicle of love and addiction, New York (1989) saw Reed claiming the mantle of his hometown's rock poet laureate, while Magic and Loss (1992) was a devastating meditation on grief. He reconnected with Cale for the Warhol tribute Songs for Drella (1990), which DeCurtis notes is a fascinating document because the two musicians forced each other to be honest rather than hagiographic.

One of DeCurtis's most interesting interviewees is musicologist Rob Bowman, who describes compiling the 1992 box set Between Thought and Expression. Reed loved the idea of using the three-disc compilation to draw attention to albums he thought were underrated (like, correctly, Berlin), but also insisted on representing albums even the sympathetic Bowman thought were indefensible (The Bells) and balked at including outtakes, unwilling to open that kind of window onto his creative process.

DeCurtis doesn't spend much time on allegations of abuse, preferring to examine the open question of Reed's sexuality. He was bisexual, although "omnisexual" might be a better way to put it, and was a pioneer in writing with an open romantic affection (and, later, heartbreak) about his years-long relationship with a trans woman named Rachel. In his final years, Reed was happily married to the performance artist Laurie Anderson.

Needless to say, there are some good stories and fascinating facts. Some of the stories reinforce the prickly character we know well...like when John Mellencamp, backstage at Farm Aid, hospitably asked Reed if there was anything he could do for him. "What do you think you could do for me?" snapped Reed.

"Lou," said Mellencamp, "it was just a pleasantry."

"Oh," shot Reed. "I was just wondering what the hell you thought you could do for me."

Then, we do learn about Reed's softer side. With what might be great astonishment, we read that Reed actually loved beaches. He knew, though, he couldn't become a wanton sun worshipper. When Arista head Clive Davis invited Reed to visit A&R man Bob Feiden's beach house as the label courted Reed for a record deal, Reed demurred.

"Clive," he said, "you don't understand. If I ever get a tan, my career would be over."

The Current's Lou Reed: A Life Giveaway

Use this form to enter The Current's Lou Reed: A Life giveaway between 7:45 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019 and 11:59 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019.

One (1) winner will receive one (1) paperback copy of Lou Reed: A Life. Three (3) backup names will be drawn.

Prize retail value: $19.99

We will contact the winners on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. Winner must accept by 10 a.m. CT on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.

You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products, and services. See Minnesota Public Radio's Terms of Use and Privacy Statement.

This giveaway is subject to Minnesota Public Radio's 2018 Official Giveaway Rules.