Lou Reed tribute concert brings stars of music to Harlem

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/18/lou-reed-tribute-concert-harlem-apollo-new-york

Version 0 of 1.

To the Tibetan Buddhist way of thinking, the dead are celebrated for 49 days among their circle of friends. Then, on the 50th day, their spirit is dissolved and released as energy. For Lou Reed, that day was marked with a celebration staged Monday night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem by his widow, Laurie Anderson, and Hal Wilner, Reed's friend and musical sidekick.

Dozens of friends offered tributes in song. Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye offered Perfect Day and a finale of Sister Ray with the Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker. Antony Hegarty sang Candy Says, Paul Simon offered a solo acoustic Pale Blue Eyes, and Debbie Harry sang White Light/White Heat. John Zorn played a crazy saxophone solo; Marc Ribot and Doug Wieselman, noise rock; Philip Glass, a Hebrew prayer for the dead; a vintage doo-wop group, the Persuasions, finger-popped through Turning Time Around; and Jenni Muldaur offered the Velvet's spiritual-inflected Jesus. At each turn, the performers brought new layers to who Reed was and what he stood for.

Since his death in October from complications following a liver transplant, the memory of Reed is itself undergoing transformation. The surly public persona Reed previously presented to the world through the press has fallen away; replaced with one weighted toward tenderness and the conciliation that his friends knew, and the one, they agreed, that was in the gift of his songs. Anderson introduced a film of Reed playing I'm Waiting For My Man from the era of his 70s peroxide blonde, junkie majesty.

"Some say it was the beauty of the Velvet Underground, some say it was music. I say it was the mind of Lou Reed," offered Anderson. "He was the only one whose use of language could match Andy (Warhol's) ability in art." Willner, who produced Reed's great, late-career album Ecstasy and the 2011 Metallica collaboration Lulu ("the bad reviews started coming in before we'd recorded a note", he recalled) also noted the choice of songs.

"He was a rock'n'roll animal but the music that truly blew him away was soul music and R&B," said Wilner. The pair had been up to the Apollo in May 2011. "His relationship to black music was unique. That night he [Reed] did Ray Charles's Night Time is the Right Time with Macy Gray and pulled it off. Remember, this the guy who in 1977 put a song called I Wanna be Black on his album Street Hassle."

That humour and love of music, Willner said, never dulled. The pair had a radio show, New York Shuffle, that began with what Reed said was his favourite piece of music – Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman. He loved Dion, especially his version of Doc Pomus' Troubled Mind, and the experimentation of new sounds, like the choppy, computer-mimicking of Nicki Minaj. "Hey, they're really trying something," Reed would say.

At the tribute, Anderson described her husband's love of the beach and the ocean and how, whenever they ate in pizza restaurants, he'd repeat, "Well, you can't lose money on bread and cheese." She introduced a Spanish TV acoustic performance of Sweet Jane. Reed, playing the final note, turned to the camera and offered in his laconic New York acccent, "Adios, amigos."

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.