Lou Reed was born in Brooklyn in 1942, and grew up on Long Island. He studied at Syracuse University with the poet Delmore Schwartz, whom he called "the first great person I ever met," and who would have a lifelong influence on his work. In 1964, he founded The Velvet Underground with John Cale. In 1967, the band released its debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, probably the most acclaimed album in rock 'n' roll history. (It was hailed by Rolling Stone as "the most prophetic rock album ever made.") The album originally sold around 30,000 copies, but in Brian Eno's famous words, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." After the band's breakup in 1973, Reed went on to have an extraordinarily successful solo career, releasing such beloved albums as Transformer, Berlin, and New York. Over his forty years as a solo artist, Reed collaborated with a huge number of artists and musicians and produced a number of major productions, including a series of concerts based on his album Berlin, staged at St.

Ann's Warehouse, in Brooklyn, in 2006--a collaboration with the artist Julian Schnabel. He died of liver disease in 2013.