Various - What Goes On: Songs Of Lou Reed (CD)

Sealed (but the front of the jewel case is cracked). The latest in Ace Records' Songwriters series takes the listener from a version of 'Why Don't You Smile Now' from Lou Reed's pre-Velvet Underground days through selections from the band's albums to songs from 1972's solo "Transformer". Here's Kris Needs - author of a 7,000-word essay in the accompanying 24-page booklet - with some background on the collection's closing song: Lou quit the Velvet Underground after the final show of the band's nine-week residency at Max's Kansas City in August 1970, before their "Loaded" album was released, citing his snake-like manager and disgust over the editing and mix as he repaired to his parents' house in Freeport. Exhausted by touring, disillusioned at the band's lack of success, withdrawing from drugs and intending to devote himself to writing, he took a low-paid typing post at his father's accountancy firm and started contributing to small press publications. "I'm a poet," he declared after a