Rock Legend And Velvet Underground Founder Lou Reed Dies At 71: 5 Live Clips That Show The Icon In Top Form (Video)

Lou Reed, one of the most influential voices of rock, died on Sunday at 71. Lou Reed leaves behind his wife, the performance artist, Laurie Anderson. Reed died in Southampton, N.Y. of an ailment related to his recent liver transplant, according to his literary agent, Andrew Wylie.

Lou Reed only had one top 20 hit, "Walk On the Wild Side."Lou Reed was at his best live. All he needed was two chords, three was pushing it.Lou Reed once said his goal was to "write the Great American Novel in the form of a record album."

 Reed wrote such songs as "Walk on the Wild Side," "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting for the Man," which was about waiting in a threatening uptown neighborhood to score dope. He recently cancelled concerts due to "unavoidable complications." His songwriter wife Anderson, best known for her 1981 hit single "O Superman," said "It's as serious as it gets. He was dying. You don't get it for fun."

In the early days of rock and roll, Lou Reed was a doo-wop fan. In 1989 he inducted Dion of Dion and the Belmonts, a Bronx doo-wop group, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here's Lou Reed doing his version of the New York City doo-wop classic, Coney Island Baby.

With the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed broke barriers of sixties rock and roll. The band sang about drug addiction, the gay lifestyle while the Stonewall Riots were still a recent memory and the darker alternatives of New York City living. Lou Reed was nothing if not honest.Andy Warhol produced the Velvet Underground's first album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico," in 1967. It didn't sell well, but it was as influential as that year's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the Beatles or "Blonde On Blonde" by Bob Dylan The Velvet Underground out Rolling Stoned the Rolling Stones.

 The Velvet Underground broke up in 1970 and Lou Reed went solo. His first backup band went on to become the prog-rock band Yes. In 1972 David Bowie produced Lou Reed's breakthrough album "Transformer" which had the hit "Walk On the Wild Side," which described drag queens and oral sex. In 1973 he released the phenomenal "Berlin." Lou Reed explored soul music and horns on "Sally Can't Dance" from 1974. I can still remember the commercials on New York TV. In 1975 he released the highly experimental "Metal Machine Music." Reed was blasted for his live "Take No Prisoners" in 1978. 

Reed sang that he took heroin "to nullify my life" and admitted it would "be the death of me" once explained that "I take drugs just because, in the 20th century, in a technological age living in the city, there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman, just to bring yourself up or down. But to attain equilibrium you need to take certain drugs. They don't get you high even, they just get you normal."

Lou Reed, and the Velvet Underground merged street smarts with avant-garde, beauty with ugliness and a harsh junkie mentality to clean pop in the late Sixties. Lou Reed sang about "Waiting for My Man," the man who had the dope. He admitted that "Heroin" was going to be the death of him, but was honest about the rush of beautiful nothingness he felt when the blood flowed into the brain.

Before it was a commercial, Lou Reed brought us a A Perfect Day.

Lou was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of the Velvet Underground, in 1996. He is not in the Hall as a solo artist. He made friends with Metallica, who backed Lou on an album and in concert. Here they are doing Nirvana's "Aneurysm."

Lou Reed married musician-performing artist Laurie Anderson in 2008 after living together throughout the nineties.