Lou Reed Rock & Roll Heart CD

Recorded at Record Plant, New York, New York in 1976. This sequel to Coney Island Baby finds Lou Reed in an equally mellow mood. The songs are mostly gentle, jazzy things, heavy on acoustic guitar, electric piano, and sax. * Long out-of-print in the US. BMG.

Personnel: Lou Reed (vocals, guitar, piano); Marty Fogel (saxophone); Michael Fonfara (piano, organ, Clavinet, ARP synthesizer); Bruce Yaw (bass); Michael Suchorsky (drums); Garland Jeffreys (background vocals).
Producer: Lou Reed.
Reissue producer: Rob Santos.
Recorded at Record Plant, New York, New York in 1976. Originally released on Arista (4100). Includes liner notes by Timothy & Karin Greenfield-Sanders.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
This is part of Buddha Records' Original Masters series.
Personnel: Lou Reed (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, background vocals); Garland Jeffreys (vocals, background vocals); Marty Fogel (saxophone); Michael Fonfara (piano, Clavinet, organ, keyboards, ARP synthesizer); Michael Suchorsky (drums).
Audio Mixers: Corky Stasiak; Jay Krugman; Lou Reed.
Liner Note Author: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.
Recording information: Record Plant, New York, NY.
Photographer: Mick Rock .
Arranger: Lou Reed.
Rock and Roll Heart was Lou Reed's first album for Arista Records, and one senses that he wanted to come up with something saleable for his new sponsors. Uptempo numbers with pop hooks dominate the set, the 12 songs zip by in an efficient 38 minutes, and instead of Reed's trademark meditations on the dark side of life, the lyrics are (for the most part) lean bursts of verse and chorus, in which the artist sings the praises of good times in general and rock & roll in particular (then again, on "I Believe in Love," Reed pledges his allegiance to both "good time music" and "the iron cross," a bit of perversity to remind us whose album this is). But if Rock and Roll Heart sounds like "Lou Reed Lite," there are more than a few flashes of Reed's inarguable talent. His band is in fine form (especially Marty Fogel on sax and Michael Fonfara on keyboards). "Banging on My Drum" is a crunchy rocker that recalls his work with the Velvet Underground; "A Sheltered Life" is an amusing bit of VU archeology (the Velvets demoed the song, but this marked its first appearance on record); and the closer, "Temporary Thing," is a bitter, haunting narrative that foreshadows Reed's next album, the harrowing masterpiece Street Hassle. ~ Mark Deming
This sequel to CONEY ISLAND BABY finds Lou Reed in an equally mellow mood. The songs are mostly gentle, jazzy things, heavy on acoustic guitar, electric piano, and sax. There are exceptions, of course. "Banging on My Drum," whose title is fully half of the song's lyric, is a three-chord rocker with Lou gone electric. Had the drumming been a little less conventional, this one could have passed for a Velvet Underground outtake. Also noteworthy are "Chooser and the Chosen One," an odd sort of R&B instrumental; "Follow the Leader," which appears to be Reed's version of '70s funk; and "Sheltered Life," in which Reed sings "I've never done drugs"-and, presumably, his nose does not grow.