Cale, John

views updated May 29 2018

John Cale

Singer, songwriter, producer

Felt Velvets Contribution Was Minimal

Paris 1919 “A Pop Masterpiece”

Collaborated With Eno

Reuinted With Reed for Warhol Tribute

Selected discography

Sources

In 1968, having become increasingly dissatisfied with his marginal role in the Velvet Underground, John Cale left the enormously influential avant-garde rock group to embark on a strange and prolific solo career. Cale’s talents as a classically trained arranger and his interests in experimentalism had lent the Velvet Underground much of their mystique and musical sophistication. In addition to utilizing these elements, Cale’s solo career proved that he was also a great songwriter and a mesmerizing performer—capable of both a dream-like frailty and a phobic fury that earned him the reputation of progenitor of the late 1970s punk rock movement.

Born in Wales in 1942, Cale trained to be a concert violinist and violist at an early age. Although he had heard rock and roll, he became primarily involved in electronic music and performance art after entering London’s Goldsmith College. He received a scholarship in 1963 to study at the prestigious Tanglewood music center in Massachusetts with famed American composer Aaron Copland and Franco-Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. At Tanglewood Cale was not allowed to play his own pieces because they were considered too violent—one involved smashing a table with an axe. After Tanglewood, he gravitated to New York City, where he worked with leading avant-gardist La Mont Young and his performing group Theatre of Eternal Music. Cale then fell sway to the underground arts scene; in 1966, with singer/songwriter Lou Reed, he formed the Velvet Underground, which soon became associated with pop artist Andy Warhol.

Felt Velvets Contribution Was Minimal

Although his viola, bass, and musical approach was a significant influence on the band, Cale did not contribute to the writing of the group’s material and was occasionally intimidated by Reed’s compositional authority. “I did very little with the Velvets,” he explained in Beyond the Velvet Underground. “It was very educational in its own way, but my contribution was, I felt, quite minimal.”

Cale’s first solo release, 1969’s Vintage Violence, was a collection of pop songs sharing straightforward arrangements and a markedly detached surrealism. A promising debut, it featured a masked Cale on the cover. But in Interview, Cale said of the album, “You don’t see the personality. I didn’t realize it until I put the thing out, but the cover was really more about the album than I had thought.”

Cale then recorded three albums that explored his classical background. Church of Anthrax was a collaboration with avant-garde composer Terry Riley.

For the Record…

Born December 5, 1942 (some sources say 1940), in Garnant (some sources say Crynant), Wales; married briefly to a woman named Cyndrella, c. 1970. Education: Attended Goldsmith College, London; attended Guildhall School of Music, London; studied with composer Humphrey Searle; studied with Iannis Xenakis and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood Music Center, c. 1963.

Recording and performing artist, producer. Participated in Boston Symphony summer festival and performed with La Mont Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music, mid-1960s; co-founder, and member of the Velvet Underground, 1966-1968; released first solo album, Vintage Violence, on Columbia Records, 1969; staff producer and A&R representative for Warner Bros, and Elektra Records, consultant for Columbia Records, early 1970s; signed with Island Records; signed with Opal Records, 1989. Producer of the Stooges’ The Stooges, Elektra, 1969; Jennifer Warnes’s Jennifer, Reprise, 1972; Patti Smith’s Horses, Arista, 1975; Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers’ The Modern Lovers, Beserkley, 1976; Squeeze’s U.K. Squeeze, A&M, 1977; and the Happy Mondays’ Squirrel and G- Man …., Factory, 1987. Contributed soundtracks to filmsHeat, 1972, and Caged Heat, 1974.

Awards: Leonard Bernstein Fellowship, 1963.

Addresses: Record company —Opal/Warner Bros., 330 Harrow Rd., London W9 2HP, England; 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91510.

John Rockwell of the New York Times remarked of the effort, “The results didn’t always work, but they were never less than interesting.” In 1972 Cale set out to record his first purely classical album. However, after deciding that the three symphonic pieces he had composed to this end did not work well on their own, he added other music to the album. The final product was titled The Academy in Peril, which Rockwell called, “an absolutely fascinating amalgam of quasi-movie music orchestral pieces, fragments of rock, dream-like sustained chordal textures with disembodied voice-overs and bizarre … arrangements.”

Paris 1919 “A Pop Masterpiece”

Paris 1919, released in 1973, is regarded by many as Cale’s best work. In it Cale makes the most of both his classical and pop sensibilities to create a natural blend of sheer pop elegance as his dark baritone delivers an eerie, post-World War I geo-political dream diary. Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone called Paris 1919 “a pop masterpiece … closer to being a finished work of art than any previous attempt to effect a rock-classical synthesis “and” the most ambitious album ever released under the name ’pop.’“The New York Times observed,” What really binds the album together is a pervasive sense of dream-like distance, a sort of sadly schizophrenic nostalgia for something that has more to do with one’s own memories than a particular place in time. Cale’s arrangements and Chris [Thomas’s] production emphasize lower-register strings, filtering techniques and overdubbing that transforms Cale’s none-too-striking voice into a gentle chorus, and continually idiosyncratic instrumental and rhythmic effects.”

Despite the critical raves, Paris 1919 sold poorly. During this time Cale worked as a staff producer at Warner Bros. He then signed a six-record deal with Island and moved back to England, where he began another phase of his career. In 1974 he told Creem magazine, “There were glimmers of light on Paris 1919— I was beginning to come through the cracks. But these songs I’m doing now, make me feel like I’m a songwriter for the first time.”

Collaborated With Eno

Soon after, Cale began to work with enigmatic art-rock high priest Brian Eno; the relationship remained an important one throughout both artists’ careers. Cale made a rare live appearance on the album June 1, 1974, recorded in Paris with Kevin Ayers, Eno, and Cale’s Velvet Underground colleague Nico. Cale’s contribution included a blood-curdling rendition of the Elvis Presley classic “Heartbreak Hotel.” Aided by Eno and Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, Cale released Fear in 1975. Though he stripped down the dreamy string effects that had become his trademark, the album, nonetheless, remained tuneful. Fearfound Cale’s paranoid delusions driving him to lyrical fury and Eno’s eccentricities inspiring him to create the abrasive sound demonstrated on the songs “Gun” and “Fear Is a Man’s Best Friend.”

Cale’s next four albums, Slow Dazzle, Helen of Troy, Animal Justice, and Sabotage/Live continued to explore a morbid recklessness and an assortment of threatening, claustrophobic nightmares commanded bythe singer’s tense, brooding vocals. Richard Mortifoglioof the Village Voice called Sabotage/Live “Cale’s best songwriting to date. Sabotage makes up for its beery looseness by rocking hard, fast… [coming] close to matching Helen of Troy and Paris 1919. The whole of side one is a relentlessly spirited tour de force.” These records played an influential role in the punk rock movement that flowered in the late 1970s, and Cale’s outrageous performances during this period were highly acclaimed and often controversial. Cale’s output through the early 1980s sought to widen his audience; although the music remained dark, it became less dangerous and more diffuse. Again, his work receives favorable reviews, but he did not see the commercial success he had hoped to achieve.

In 1986 Cale teamed with Eno again, on Words for the Dying, a work comprised of two lengthy orchestral pieces and one shorter section. Of his next project, Cale told Melody Maker, “While the Argentine flag was being raised on South Georgia [during the Falklands Islands War between Britain and Argentina in 1982], I was feverishly embarking on a comprehensive setting of the collective poems of Dylan Thomas. Each night I would sit thrashing about from one poem to another with the tape running. By the end of the war I had arrived at ’Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed’.... Of the nine poems done there were four that felt all of a piece.” This eventually became 1989’s “Falklands Suite,” which, along with “Songs Without Words,” comprises an ambitious, elegiac orchestral work that was recorded by the Orchestra of Symphonic and Popular Music of Gosteleradio, in Moscow.

1990’s Wrong Way Up was the first project wherein Cale and Eno collaborated fully to produce a completely joint album. It was also Eno’s first pop vocal performance in years. Rolling Stone contributor David Fricke called the release “a gem, if an oddly anachronistic one. [Cale and Eno’s] trademarks—launching synth patterns, carefully plucked guitar strings, self-consciously simple lyrics, chant-like choruses and echoey production—have been so plundered by their proteges over the years that they have lost some of their initial mystique.”

Reuinted With Reed for Warhol Tribute

In 1989 Cale and Lou Reed wrote and performed a stunning collection of songs titled Songs for ’Drella, a 50-minute portrait of former manager and mentor Andy Warhol. ’Drella revealed the paradoxical nature of Warhol’s personality and art—in its simplicity and complexity—while at the same time uncovering for the listener the similar contradictions at the center of both Cale and Reed’s work. Fricke called ’Drella “a dream come true, a brilliant landmark collaboration by two headstrong avant-rock pioneers … a testament to the continuing strength of Warhol’s catalytic powers and the enduring force of the Velvet’s deviant genius.” Jon Pareles in the New York Times opined, “As tunes, nearly every one of the song cycle’s segments is memorable. Cale and Reed are past masters of making simplicity eloquent.”

In 1992 Cale released Fragments of a Rainy Season, a live offering recorded in Europe earlier that year. Though not as celebrated as Magic and Loss, Reed’s offering of 1992, Fragments did remind some critics of Cale’s haunting musical legacy. A stripped-down affair of piano and voice, Rolling Stone concluded of the work, “Fragments of a Rainy Season covers the erratic sweep of John Cale’s career...… [It] makes an informative primer for initiates, but veterans who (understandably) wrote Cale off in the Eighties may want to use it as a refresher course.”

Equally significant as his own solo recordings is the work Cale has produced for other artists. His first landmark work outside the Velvet Underground was his production of the Stooges’ With the Stooges, a collection of three-chord Detroit-style punk that was many years ahead of its time. Cale also produced Patti Smith’s highly acclaimed debut album, Horses, and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers’ first two records, in 1976. In 1977 he worked with Squeeze on their debut. Although Cale’s style as a producer has varied from album to album, he has consistently demonstrated a willingness to present artists as honestly as he can; as would be expected from a creative force so uncompromising in his own artistry, Cale has made it his mission to produce powerful statements that are as much about the raw personality of the artist as they are about the artist’s music.

Selected discography

With the Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground and Nico, Verve, 1967.

White Light/White Heat, Verve, 1967.

Solo releases

Vintage Violence, Columbia, 1970, reissued, Columbia/Legacy, 1991.

(With Terry Riley) Church of Anthrax, Columbia, 1971.

The Academy in Peril, Reprise, 1972.

Paris 1919, Reprise, 1973.

Fear, Island, 1974.

(With Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, and Nico) June 1, 1974, Island, 1974.

Slow Dazzle, Island, 1975.

Helen of Troy, Island UK, 1975.

Guts (compilation of Fear, Slow Dazzle, and Helen of Troy), Island, 1977.

Animal Justice (EP), Illegal, 1977.

Sabotage/Live, IRS, 1979.

Honi Soit, A&M, 1981.

Music for a New Society, Ze/lsland, 1982.

Caribbean Sunset, Ze/lsland, 1984.

John Caie Comes Alive, Ze/lsland, 1984.

Artificial Intelligence, PVC/Jem, 1985.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (live recordings, 1978-79), Special Stock, 1986.

Words for the Dying, Opal/Warner Bros., 1989.

(With Lou Reed) Songs for Drella, Sire/Warner Bros., 1990.

(With Eno) Wrong Way Up, Opal/Warner Bros., 1990.

Paris S’Eveille—Suivi D’Autres Compositions, Crépuscule (Belgium), 1992.

Fragments of a Rainy Season, Hannibal/Rykodisc, 1992.

Sources

Books

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, edited by Jon Pareles and Patricia Romanowski, Rolling Stone Press/Summit Books, 1983.

Stambler, Irwin, The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock, and Soul, St. Martin’s, 1989.

Thompson, Dave, Beyond the Velvet Underground, Omnibus, 1989.

Peroidicals

Atlantic, April 1990.

Creem, October 1974.

Interview, August 1972.

Melody Maker, February 11, 1989; December 9, 1989.

Metro Times (Detroit), November 4, 1992.

New York Times, December 21, 1974; December 24, 1976; April 22, 1981; December 1, 1989.

Rolling Stone, May 10, 1973; January 11, 1990; December 10, 1992.

Spin, December 1992.

Village Voice, August 2, 1976.

Additional information for this profile was obtained from Opal Records media information, 1989.

—Glenn Rechler

Contemporary Musicians Rechler, Glenn

Cale, John

views updated May 14 2018

John Cale

Singer, songwriter, music producer

In 1968, having become increasingly dissatisfied with his marginal role in the Velvet Underground, John Cale left the enormously influential avant-garde rock group to embark on a prolific solo career. Cale's talents as a classically trained arranger and his interest in experimentalism had lent the Velvet Underground much of their mystique and musical sophistication. In addition to utilizing these elements, Cale's solo career proved that he was also a great songwriter and a mesmerizing performer—capable of both a dream-like frailty and a phobic fury that earned him the reputation as a progenitor of the late 1970s punk rock movement.

Born in Wales in 1942, Cale trained as a concert violinist at an early age. Although he had heard rock and roll, he became primarily involved in electronic music and performance art after entering London's Goldsmith College. He received a scholarship in 1963 to study at the prestigious Tanglewood music center in Massachusetts with famed American composer Aaron Copland and Franco-Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. At Tanglewood, Cale was not allowed to play his own pieces because they were considered too violent—one involved smashing a table with an axe. After Tanglewood, he gravitated to New York City, where he worked with leading avant-gardist La Monte Young and his performing group Theatre of Eternal Music. Cale then fell sway to the underground arts scene; in 1966, with singer/songwriter Lou Reed, he formed the Velvet Underground, which soon became associated with pop artist Andy Warhol.

Although his viola, bass, and musical approach was a significant influence on the band, Cale did not contribute to the writing of the group's material, and was occasionally intimidated by Reed's compositional authority. "I did very little with the Velvets," he explained in the book Beyond the Velvet Underground. "It was very educational in its own way, but my contribution was, I felt, quite minimal."

Cale's first solo release, 1969's Vintage Violence, was a collection of pop songs sharing straightforward arrangements and a markedly detached surrealism. A promising debut, it featured a masked Cale on the cover. But in Interview, Cale said of the album, "You don't see the personality. I didn't realize it until I put the thing out, but the cover was really more about the album than I had thought."

Cale then recorded three albums that explored his classical background. Church of Anthrax was a collaboration with avant-garde composer Terry Riley. John Rockwell of the New York Times remarked of the effort, "The results didn't always work, but they were never less than interesting." In 1972 Cale set out to record his first purely classical album. However, after deciding that the three symphonic pieces he had composed did not work well on their own, he added other music to the project. The final product was titled The Academy inPeril, which Rockwell called "an absolutely fascinating amalgam of quasi-movie music orchestral pieces, fragments of rock, dream-like sustained chordal textures with disembodied voice-overs and bizarre … arrangements."

Paris 1919, released in 1973, is regarded by many as Cale's best work. Cale made the most of both his classical and pop sensibilities to create a natural blend of sheer pop elegance, as his dark baritone delivered an eerie, post-World War I geo-political dream diary. Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone called Paris 1919 "a pop masterpiece … closer to being a finished work of art than any previous attempt to effect a rock-classical synthesis," as well as "the most ambitious album ever released under the name 'pop.'" The New York Times observed, "What really binds the album together is a pervasive sense of dream-like distance, a sort of sadly schizophrenic nostalgia for something that has more to do with one's own memories than a particular place in time."

Despite the critical raves, Paris 1919 sold poorly. During this time Cale worked as a staff producer at Warner Bros. He then signed a six-record deal with Island and moved back to England, where he began another phase of his career. In 1974 he told Creem magazine, "There were glimmers of light on Paris 1919—I was beginning to come through the cracks. But these songs I'm doing now, make me feel like I'm a songwriter for the first time."

Soon after, Cale began to work with enigmatic art-rock high priest Brian Eno; the relationship remained an important one throughout both artists' careers. Cale made a rare live appearance on the album June 1, 1974, recorded in Paris with Kevin Ayers, Eno, and Cale's Velvet Underground colleague Nico. Cale's contribution included a blood-curdling rendition of the Elvis Presley classic "Heartbreak Hotel." Aided by Eno and Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, Cale released Fear in 1975, stripping down the dreamy string effects that had become his trademark. Fear found Cale's paranoid delusions driving him to lyrical fury, and Eno's eccentricities inspiring him to create the abrasive sound demonstrated on the songs "Gun" and "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend."

Cale's next four albums, Slow Dazzle, Helen of Troy, Animal Justice, and Sabotage/Live, continued to explore a morbid recklessness and an assortment of threatening, claustrophobic nightmares commanded by the singer's tense, brooding vocals. Richard Mortifoglio of the Village Voice called Sabotage/Live "Cale's best songwriting to date." These records played an influential role in the punk rock movement that flowered in the late 1970s, and Cale's outrageous performances during this period were highly acclaimed and often controversial. Cale's output through the early 1980s sought to widen his audience; although the music remained dark, it became less dangerous and more diffuse. His work received favorable reviews, but he did not see the commercial success he had hoped to achieve.

For the Record …

Born on December 5, 1942 (some sources say 1940), in Garnant (some sources say Crynant), Wales; married briefly to a woman named Cyndrella, c. 1970. Education: Attended Goldsmith College, London; attended Guildhall School of Music, London; studied with composer Humphrey Searle; studied with Iannis Xenakis and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood Music Center, c. 1963.

Recording and performing artist, producer; participated in Boston Symphony summer festival and performed with La Mont Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, mid-1960s; co-founder and member of the Velvet Underground, 1966-68; released first solo album, Vintage Violence, on Columbia Records, 1969; staff producer and A&R representative for Warner Bros. and Elektra Records, consultant for Columbia Records, early 1970s; contributed soundtracks to films Heat, 1972, and Caged Heat, 1974; signed with Island Records; signed with Opal Records, 1989. Producer of the Stooges' The Stooges, Elektra, 1969; Jennifer Warnes's Jennifer, 1972; Patti Smith's Horses, 1975; Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers' The Modern Lovers, 1976; Squeeze's U.K. Squeeze, 1977; and the Happy Mondays' Squirrel and G-Man.…, 1987; released HoboSapiens, 2003.

Awards: Leonard Bernstein Fellowship, 1963.

Addresses: Record company—EMI Records Limited, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5SW, United Kingdom, phone: 020 7795 7000; 37 West 17th St., Ste. 5 W., New York, NY 10011. Website—John Cale Official Website: http://www.john-cale.com.

In 1986 Cale teamed with Eno again, on Words for the Dying, a work comprised of two lengthy orchestral pieces and one shorter section. In 1989, "Falklands Suite," along with "Songs Without Words," comprised an ambitious, elegiac orchestral work that was recorded by the Orchestra of Symphonic and Popular Music of Gosteleradio in Moscow.

In 1990 Wrong Way Up was the first project in which Cale and Eno collaborated fully to produce a completely joint album. It was also Eno's first pop vocal performance in years. Rolling Stone contributor David Fricke called the release "a gem, if an oddly anachronistic one. [Cale and Eno's] trademarks—launching synth patterns, carefully plucked guitar strings, self-consciously simple lyrics, chant-like choruses and echoey production—have been so plundered by their proteges over the years that they have lost some of their initial mystique."

The remainder of the 1990s was a busy time for Cale. He collaborated with Bob Neuwirth on the stage production and recording for The Last Day on Earth in 1994, and released the solo efforts Antartida in 1994 and Walking on Locusts in 1996. Also in 1996, Cale joined the re-formed Velvet Underground for several concerts in Europe. Before the group could bring their historical act to the United States, however, renewed tensions between Cale and Reed surfaced, and the pair vowed never to work with one another again. In 1998 Cale paid homage to his former Velvet Underground collaborator Nico by composing a song cycle to accompany a dance performance in her honor.

As the new century dawned, Cale witnessed his earliest recordings of the 1960s resurface on three different recordings, Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 1: Day of Niagra (1965), Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 2: Dream Interpretation, and Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 3: Stainless Gamelan. This series of albums was recorded with fellow avant-garde musicians La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, and Marian Zazeela. The Dream Syndicate recordings represented a compelling aural offering of music from one of the headiest eras of avant-garde musical history.

In 2003 Cale released HoboSapiens, a collection of original songs that he released on the EMI label. The album earned critical praise from Uncut magazine, which named the recording its number three album of the year. Much of the album was composed in the studio, with songs taking shape around tape loops, samples, and electronic sounds. "I like that it was so fast and I could change my mind about things very quickly and move on," Cale told Rolling Stone.

The work Cale produced for other artists is as significant as his own solo recordings. His first landmark work outside the Velvet Underground was his production of the Stooges' With the Stooges, a collection of three-chord Detroit-style punk that was many years ahead of its time. Cale also produced Patti Smith's highly acclaimed debut album, Horses, and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers' first two records, in 1976. In 1977 he worked with Squeeze on their debut. Although Cale's style as a producer has varied from album to album, he has consistently demonstrated a willingness to present artists as honestly as he can, and has made it his mission to produce powerful statements that are as much about the raw personality of the artist as they are about the artist's music.

Selected discography

Solo releases

Vintage Violence, Columbia, 1970; reissued, Columbia/Legacy, 1991.

(With Terry Riley) Church of Anthrax, Columbia, 1971.

The Academy in Peril, Reprise, 1972.

Paris 1919, Reprise, 1973.

Fear, Island, 1974.

(With Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, and Nico) June 1, 1974, Island, 1974.

Slow Dazzle, Island, 1975.

Helen of Troy, Island UK, 1975.

Guts (compilation), Island, 1977.

Animal Justice (EP), Illegal, 1977.

Sabotage/Live, IRS, 1979.

Honi Soit, A&M, 1981.

Music for a New Society, Ze/Island, 1982.

Caribbean Sunset, Ze/Island, 1984.

John Cale Comes Alive, Ze/Island, 1984.

Artificial Intelligence, PVC/Jem, 1985.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (live recordings, 1978-79), Special Stock, 1986.

Words for the Dying, Opal/Warner Bros., 1989.

(With Lou Reed) Songs for 'Drella, Sire/Warner Bros., 1990.

(With Eno) Wrong Way Up, Opal/Warner Bros., 1990.

Paris S'Eveille—Suivi D'Autres Compositions, Crepuscule (Belgium), 1992.

Fragments of a Rainy Season, Hannibal/Rykodisc, 1992.

23 Solo Pieces for La Naissance de L'Amour, Crepuscule, 1993.

(With Bob Neuwirth) The Last Day on Earth, MCA, 1994.

Antartida, Les Disques de Crepuscule, 1995.

Walking on Locusts, Hannibal, 1996.

Dance Music, Detour, 1998.

Nico, Elektra/Asylum, 1998.

(Soundtrack) La Vent de la Nuit, Import, 1999.

(With Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela) Day of Niagra: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 1: 1965, Table of the Elements, 2000.

Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 2: Dream Interpretation, Table of the Elements, 2002.

(With Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela) Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 3: Inside the Stainless Gamelan, Table of the Elements, 2002.

HoboSapiens, EMI, 2003.