Less famous than his former bandmate from the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, John Cale also performed a thrilling ride. At 77 years of age, he has crossed fifty years of music with an elegance that is unmatched. A pianist and a violist by training, the young man benefited from the sponsorship of the largest. Studying music in London and then in New York, it follows the teaching of the great John Cage. But it is the encounter with a gifted Brooklyn native who makes it deviate from its path of player classic or composer of experimental music. In the mid-1960s, Lou Reed presents him with a few songs of his own composition that it will illuminate its interventions, to the bass as the violin viola.
If he is not the leader, Wedge is one of the architects of the sound of the Velvet Underground, training in new york that Andy Warhol does not take long to take him under his wing. The time of two albums, the founding – The Velvet Underground and Nico in 1967, White Light, White Heat the following year, John Cale makes his weapons before landing by a Reed, which intends to ensure a total domination on the group.
Touchy
In 1969, John Cale premiere his solo career, directing the recording sessions of the debut album of the Stooges, which reveal Iggy Pop. This activity of artistic achievement, the easily offended continue with both Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman singer Lio. It is chic to display the name of this individualistic fierce in the credits of an album. But it is still for himself that John Cale will be the most inventive. With a masterpiece such as Paris 1919 in 1973, Cale reconciles rock california of Little Feat and instrumentation classic european-inspired. With Brian Eno, he then completes a hat-trick of abrasive discs in London in the mid-1970s.
the arrival of the punks, Cale is acclaimed as a sponsor of both the English scene than american. Self-destructive as possible, it is becoming more radical with concerts also wild and chaotic. After the austere Music For A New Society , 1982, Cale wanders off before coming back to the fore with a musical adaptation of the texts of Dylan Thomas, Words for the Dying , set-its by Eno. Its production of original albums is scarce at the moment it starts to provide original soundtracks to tower arms to several French filmmakers. The reunion with Lou Reed on the album’s tribute to Warhol, Songs for Drella are a tour-de-force that will not allow for the reconciliation of these two egos in spite of the reformation in the semi-shade of the Velvet Underground in 1993.
If it has not released a new disc since 2012, John Cale remains a vivid feeling of the scene. In Paris, he has been seen in recent years replay Paris 1919 in its entirety, to revisit the legacy of the Velvet Underground and share the stage for the fondation Cartier in paris with Patti Smith. Back without songs but with a directory that is fascinating.
John Cale, Futurespective, City of music, Philharmonie de Paris 221, avenue Jean-Jaurès (Xix).
Tel.: 01 44 84 44 84. From 23 to 25. seven. at 20: 30. Seats from 32 to 41€.
