“Being a living legend is such a precarious livelihood. It’s like being a bar of soap in a shower which doesn’t have any water in it.”
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John Cale
John Davies Cale is a Welsh singer, musician, composer, record producer and arranger. He was a founding member of the influential American rock band the Velvet Underground, with whom he recorded two studio albums. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles of rock and avant-garde music.
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entertainment · Welsh musician (born 1942) · singer-songwriter · record producer · actor · lyricist · autobiographer · model · film actor · television actor · music arranger · experimental musician · also John Cale, Cale
Born 9 March 1942 · Q45909
141 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 7 entries
“The viola is the saddest of all instruments.”
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“The value of having a computer, to me, is that it'll remember everything you do. It's a databank.”
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“When I got to New York, drugs were everywhere, and they quickly became part of my artistic experiment”
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“There was this period around mid-late Seventies when David and I would run into each other in New York. There was plenty of talk about getting some work done but of course we”
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Public attention spiked: 5,825 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.2× the usual 1,111, with 1 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 9,574 Wikipedia readers in one day, 8.6× the usual 1,111, with 2 article edits. Editors noted: 2020s edit link
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2025· 6 entries
The Guardian: Charli xcx: House ft John Cale review – haunt me, then! An elegant, brutal taste of the Wuthering Heights OST
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Released album “MiXology (volume 1)”.
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The Guardian: John Cale review – 83 years old and still forging deeper underground
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Released album “1987-01-30: Cabaret Metro, Chicago, IL”.
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Released album “1999‐07‐09: Songwriters’ Circle, Subterania Club, London, England, UK”.
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Career landmark: Participated in POPtical Illusion Tour (tournament / event).
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2024· 4 entries
Released album “Ship of Fools”.
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The Guardian: ‘Hip-hop is the new avant garde’: John Cale on Lou Reed, anger and continual reinvention
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The Guardian: John Cale: Poptical Illusion review – counterculture icon finds his fun side
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Released album “POPtical Illusion”.
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2023· 5 entries
The Guardian: John Cale: Mercy review – the titan of cool misses a trick
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Released album “MERCY”.
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The Guardian: ‘Humanity hit a brick wall’: John Cale on the Velvets, Nico, Covid and a gun-ridden world gone bad
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Career landmark: Participated in Mercy Tour (tournament / event).
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Adding two extra dates for Manchester, and Stroud later that year
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2022· 4 entries
The Guardian: The outsider’s outsider: John Cale by Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys and James Dean Bradfield
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The Guardian: ‘They didn’t go round the corner for beer’: Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for Drella
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The Guardian: Songs for Drella review – Lou Reed and John Cale’s moving journey into Warhol
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“s tour was to begin in Liverpool at the Philharmonic Hall on 15 July, before calling at Whitley Bay, York, Bexhill, Cambridge and the London Palladium, before closing out the run at Birmingham Town Hall on 25 July. However, the tour was postponed to the fall of 2022 due to some bandmembers contracting COVID-19. In August 2022, Cale released the new track”
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2018· 2 entries
Career landmark: Participated in John Cale & Band + Sinfonietta de Lausanne concert performed during Montreux Jazz Festival the 2018-06-29 (tournament / event).
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Released album “1974‐05‐10: Berlin Nationalgalerie”.
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2016· 2 entries
Released album “M:FANS”.
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Released album “Music for a New Society / M:FANS”.
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2014· 3 entries
Awarded Człowiek ze Złotym Uchem in Łódź (2014).
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Career landmark: Participated in LOOP − 60Hz: Transmissions from The Drone Orchestra (tournament / event).
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Appeared as vendor in an episode "Sorrowsworn" of the crime drama television series The Bridge
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2013· 1 entry
Released album “1976‐11‐26, early show: The Bottom Line, New York City, NY, USA”.
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2012· 13 entries
Released album “Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood”.
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Released ep “Extra Playful: Transitions”.
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Released album “Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966–2006”.
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“I only hope that one day John will be recognized as … the Beethoven or something of his day. He knows so much about music, he's such a great musician. He's completely mad - but that's because he's Welsh.”
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“John Cale is fantastic, and he made the sound of the Velvet Underground.”
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“Never knew whether John Cale wanted to be Elvis Presley, Frankenstein's creature or the young Chopin.”
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“John Cale is a f*cking elitist. He did not like the people he was playing for. He's Welsh, and they're all nasty bastards.”
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“I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll.”
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“I use cracks on the sidewalk to walk down the street. I'd always walk on the lines. I never take anything but a calculated risk, and do it because it gives me a sense of identity. Fear is a man's best friend.”
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“The only reason we wore sunglasses onstage was because we couldn't stand the sight of the audience.”
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“If you're all loaded up on love, you haven't got anywhere else to go.”
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“I learn from thinking about the future, what hasn't been done yet. That's kind of my constant obsession.”
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“I'm bent on proving that you can make living as musician and not die young and crazy like Mozart.”
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2011· 2 entries
Released ep “Extra Playful: EP Commentary”.
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Released ep “Extra Playful”.
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2010· 2 entries
Awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire presented by Charles III in Buckingham Palace (2010).
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Released album “Live at Rockpalast”.
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2006· 2 entries
Released album “New York in the 1960s”.
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Released album “Circus Live”.
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2005· 3 entries
Released album “Black Acetate”.
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Released album “Process”.
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Cale produced American singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo's eighth studio album, The Boxing Mirror, which was released in May 2006
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2003· 3 entries
Released album “HoboSapiens”.
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Released ep “5 Tracks”.
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With the EP 5 Tracks and studio album HoboSapiens, Cale again returned as a regular recording artist, this time with music influenced by modern electronica and alternative rock
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2002· 2 entries
Cale played piano and sang vocals on the track "Don't Pretend" by Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, from his debut solo studio album Hitting the Ground
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Released album “Stainless Gamelan: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume III: Table of the Elements”.
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2001· 2 entries
Released album “Sun Blindness Music: New York in the 1960's, Volume 1”.
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Released album “Dream Interpretation: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume II”.
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2000· 4 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Antwerp (2000).
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Awarded honorary degree in University of Antwerp (2000).
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Released album “Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume I: Day of Niagara”.
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Cale was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Antwerp, Belgium, for "his influential and groundbreaking work in contemporary music, ballet and film music, and for his eminent contribution to the development of contemporary a
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1999· 3 entries
Released album “Close Watch: An Introduction to John Cale”.
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Released album “Le Vent De La Nuit”.
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Released album “The Unknown”.
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1998· 1 entry
Released album “Dance Music”.
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1997· 3 entries
Awarded honorary degree in Goldsmiths, University of London (1997).
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Released album “Eat / Kiss: Music for the Films by Andy Warhol”.
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Released album “1972‐01‐29: Le Bataclan, Paris, France”.
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1996· 6 entries
Awarded Rock and Roll Hall of Fame presented by Patti Smith in Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1996).
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Released album “Le Bataclan ’72”.
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Played piano on "Love to Die For" by Marc Almond of Soft Cell, from his ninth solo studio album Fantastic Star
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Released album “June 1, 1974 Outtakes”.
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Released album “The Island Years”.
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Released album “Walking on Locusts”.
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1995· 2 entries
Released album “Antártida”.
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Released album “N'oublie pas que tu vas mourir”.
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1994· 4 entries
Released album “Last Day on Earth”.
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Released album “Seducing Down the Door: A Collection 1970 - 1990”.
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Cale performed a spoken-word duet with Suzanne Vega on the song "The Long Voyage" on Zazou's studio album Chansons des mers froides
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Career landmark: Participated in The '99 Greenwich Delusion (tournament / event).
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1993· 3 entries
Documented on the live album Live MCMXCIII
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Released album “Ready for War”.
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Released album “23 Solo Pieces for La Naissance de l’amour”.
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1992· 4 entries
Released album “Cale Street”.
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Released album “Broken Hearts - Live”.
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Performed vocals on two songs, "Hunger" and "First Evening", on French composer and record producer Hector Zazou's Sahara Blue, a concept album based on the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud
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Released album “Fragments of a Rainy Season”.
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1991· 4 entries
Released album “Paris s’éveille”.
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Released album “In Concert - Performance '91”.
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Released album “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”.
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Released album “Down at the End of Lonely Street HARD ROCK CAFE”.
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1990· 4 entries
Released album “Wrong Way Up”.
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Released album “Songs for Drella”.
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Released ep “Ring of Fire / Shuffle Down to Woodbridge / Merry Christmas”.
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Collaborated with Reed on Songs for Drella, a tribute to the Velvet Underground's mentor and one-time manager Andy Warhol
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1989· 2 entries
Released album “Words for the Dying”.
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With the Brian Eno-produced studio album Words for the Dying
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1987· 1 entry
Cale again collaborated with Lou Reed on the 1990 studio album Songs for Drella, a song cycle about Warhol
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1985· 1 entry
Released album “Artificial Intelligence”.
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1984· 2 entries
Released album “Caribbean Sunset”.
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Released album “John Cale Comes Alive”.
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1982· 4 entries
Released album “Music for a New Society”.
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Released album “En Concert À L’Enfer”.
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As a response to the Falklands War, using poems written by fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas
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Cale released the sparse studio album Music for a New Society
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1981· 2 entries
Released album “Honi Soit”.
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On 6 December 1981, Cale married his third wife, Risé Irushalmi, and they had a daughter.
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1980· 1 entry
Cale signed a recording contract with A&M Records and moved in a more commercial direction with his seventh solo studio album Honi Soit (1981)
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1979· 3 entries
Cale played piano and synthesizer on the track "Bastard" by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, on his fourth solo studio album You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic
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Began a relationship with Austin, Texas-based groupie and journalist Margaret Moser
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Released album “Sabotage / Live”.
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1978· 1 entry
Cale produced the majority of Squeeze's debut studio album Squeeze, with Cale instructing the band to discard all of the songs that the band had written up until that point and write new songs instead
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1977· 4 entries
Released ep “Animal Justice”.
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An extended play (EP) notable particularly for the epic "Hedda Gabler" based very loosely on the 1891 play of the same name by Henrik Ibsen
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Cale produced "I Don't Wanna", the debut single by Sham 69
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Released album “Guts”.
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1975· 2 entries
Released album “Helen of Troy”.
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Released album “Slow Dazzle”.
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1974· 4 entries
Released album “June 1, 1974”.
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Signed a recording contract with Island Records as an artist, while continuing to produce a variety of artists (mostly for other labels), including Squeeze, Patti Smith and Sham 69
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Cale moved back to London
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Released album “Fear”.
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1973· 1 entry
Released album “Paris 1919”.
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1972· 2 entries
Released album “The Academy in Peril”.
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Signed with Reprise Records as a recording artist and staff producer
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1971· 2 entries
Released album “Church of Anthrax”.
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Cale met Cynthia "Cindy" Wells (1952–1997), better known as Miss Cinderella or Miss Cindy of the GTOs, and they married soon afterwards
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1970· 2 entries
Released album “Vintage Violence”.
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Albeit in the studio only: he played organ on the track "Ocean" during the practice sessions to produce demos for the band's fourth studio album Loaded, nearly two years after he left the band
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1968· 1 entry
Cale has released seventeen solo studio albums, including Paris 1919 (1973), which is retrospectively considered to be his masterpiece; Fear (1974); Slow Dazzle (1975); and Music for a New Society (1982)
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1965· 1 entry
Cale procured records by the Kinks, the Who and the Small Faces that had remained unavailable in the United States and shopped a crudely recorded acoustic Velvet Underground demo tape to several luminaries in the British
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1963· 3 entries
Where he performed as part of the drone collective the Theatre of Eternal Music and formed the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed
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Travelled to the United States to continue his musical training with the assistance and influence of American composer Aaron Copland, who recommended him for Tanglewood
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Studied at Goldsmiths, University of London (1960–1963).
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1942· 1 entry
Born 1942-03-09.
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