John Cale

Classically trained (viola and piano) and well-educated, Welsh-born John Cale became interested in both the experimental side of classical music (including artists like John Cage), and American rock-n-roll. When offered a chance to study music in New York in the early 1960s, Cale accepted, and along with school became an apprentice of Cage's, including performing a relay piano piece with him ("Vexations") onstage. Needing some quick cash away from his studies during 1964, Cale next became the bass guitarist for a band called the Primitives, put together around a song (called "The Ostrich") by Lou Reed, who was then a staff writer for a small record label. The record bombed, but Cale and Reed became musical partners and co-writers. Forming The Velvet Underground the next year with Reed's old college classmate Sterling Morrison, a cornerstone of the band was the camaraderie of Reed and Cale, and the way they worked together. Cale's classical touches gave the streetwise rock group's sou