Unlike bandmates Lou Reed, Doug Yule, John Cale, Maureen Tucker and Nico, Morrison never released a solo album or made recordings under his own name. He was nevertheless an essential element of the group's sound as a guitarist whose percussive and syncopated rhythm playing and melodic lead parts provided the foil for Lou Reed's improvisational rhythm and lead guitar riffs.[1]
Biography
Early years
Morrison was born on August 29, 1942, in the Long Island town of East Meadow, New York. He had two brothers and two sisters. His parents divorced when he was young and his mother remarried.[2] He first met future Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker during childhood, through her brother Jim, who attended Division Avenue High School in Levittown, New York, with Morrison.[3] Originally playing trumpet, Morrison switched to guitar after his teacher was drafted.[4]
Morrison majored in English at the City College of New York. While visiting his friend Jim Tucker at Syracuse University, he met Lou Reed, a friend of Tucker and a fellow English student.[5] Before Reed graduated in 1964, they met again in New York City in 1963. By this time, Reed had met John Cale and was interested in starting a band, so when they encountered Morrison, he was invited to join.[6]
Morrison primarily played guitar on the band's first two albums, although when Cale, the band's usual bassist, played viola or keyboards in the studio or on stage, Morrison often filled in on bass. Some songs (including "Heroin" and "Sister Ray") had Reed and Morrison on their usual guitars while Cale played viola and Vox Continental organ respectively, with no bass guitar.
After Cale left the group in 1968, Morrison usually exclusively played guitar; however, photographic evidence indicates that he continued to play bass onstage for certain songs if Doug Yule, Cale's replacement, was occupied with organ.[10] Additionally, Morrison frequently sang backing vocals and the occasional lead vocal spot (he recited many verses of Reed's poetry in "The Murder Mystery" and sang one line in "I'm Sticking with You").[11]
Morrison repeatedly remarked that "Venus in Furs", from the band's debut album, was his personal favorite of all of The Velvet Underground's songs, as he felt that the group had achieved with that one track, to a greater degree than any other, the sound the band had in mind.[12]
In 1970, when the band was back in New York City to play an entire summer's engagement at Max's Kansas City, Morrison seized the opportunity to complete his undergraduate degree at the City College of New York. He remained in the Velvet Underground as lead guitarist after Reed left the band in acrimonious circumstances in August 1970. In 1971, however, he began graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he would earn a PhD in medieval literature[2] (with a dissertation on the four signed poems of Cynewulf) in 1986.[13] Morrison's last performance with the band was on August 21, 1971, at Liberty Hall in Houston. When it was time for the band to return to New York, Morrison packed an empty suitcase and accompanied them to the gate of their departing plane, before finally telling them he was staying in Texas and leaving the band, the last founding member to quit.[14]
Post-Velvet Underground life (1971–1990)
Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker in Augsburg, Germany, in 1992
Morrison began to work on Houston tugboats as a deckhand to supplement his income in the mid-1970s; when he was forced to relinquish his teaching assistantship some years later, he was licensed as a master mariner and became the captain of a Houston tugboat, a vocation he pursued throughout the 1980s.[14][15]
After leaving the Velvet Underground, Morrison's musical career was primarily limited to informal sessions for personal enjoyment, though he played in a few bands around Austin, Texas, most notably the Bizarros.[16] Morrison's tenure in the capital of Texas made him a well-loved and admired member of the local music community as well as an influential voice. During John Cale's renaissance in the late 1970s, Morrison occasionally sat in with his former bandmate on stages such as the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. From the mid-1980s on, he occasionally recorded or performed with Cale, Reed, and particularly Tucker, who had by then started a solo career of her own. Morrison was part of her touring band for most of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Velvet Underground reunion
In 1992, the core Velvet Underground line-up of Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker decided to reform for a tour and possible album. Morrison argued that Doug Yule, who had replaced Cale in 1968, should be included to fill out the sound, but Reed and Cale vetoed him. The band extensively toured Europe in 1993, alternatively as headline act or supporting U2. Morrison's playing held up well, and his performances were generally agreed to be top-notch.[citation needed] But by the end of the tour, relationships had soured again and plans for a US tour and MTV Unplugged album were scrapped[17] and as a result, the European tour turned out to be the last for the Velvet Underground. Morrison joined Maureen Tucker's band for a tour in 1994.
Death
In late 1994, Morrison was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; and, as his health deteriorated, he could no longer play guitar. He was visited by his former bandmates Reed and Tucker; according to Reed, when he visited Morrison for the last time, he was bedridden, had lost weight and his hair, but never complained about his lymphoma and described it as "leaves in the fall".[18]
Morrison died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on August 30, 1995, one day after his 53rd birthday.[2]
Upon their induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, Reed, Cale and Tucker performed a song titled "Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend", which was dedicated to Morrison.[20]Doug Yule, another Velvet Underground member, wrote an obituary for Morrison following his death.
In March 2001, Morrison was remembered through a tribute set at the Austin Music Awards during the South by Southwest Festival. John Cale performed "Some Friends", a song he had composed in Morrison's memory, with Alejandro Escovedo, who played a song he wrote in 1995 called "Tugboat" which alludes to Morrison's time spent as a tugboat captain at the Houston Ship Channel. An SXSW panel on Sterling successfully convened that year, with Cale and others remembering their friend. Morrison was also the subject of an oral history, Velvet Underdog, in The Austin Chronicle that year.[14] The story utilised quotes by Cale, Reed, Tucker, and other Morrison associates.
Other songs that honor Morrison include the Galaxie 500 song "Tugboat" that alludes to Morrison's post-Velvet Underground career. Morrison was a major influence on Dean Wareham.[21]
Personal life
Morrison's surviving family includes his widow, Martha (whom he married in 1971), his son, Thomas, and his daughter, Mary Anne, all of whom reside in Poughkeepsie, New York.[2]
Guitar style
During the Cale era, Morrison primarily focused on rhythm guitar, although both Reed and Morrison did trade lead and rhythm guitarist roles.[22][23] From the third album on though, Morrison almost always took the role of lead guitarist as Reed concentrated more on his singing and rhythm playing.
Morrison and Reed's guitars were essentially duelling guitars that complemented each other, alternating between lead lines and rhythm parts interchangeably and with no assigned roles on who was lead or rhythm. Relative to Reed's improvisational and experimental guitar style, Morrison's guitar style was generally syncopated and more percussive with cleaner melodic lead parts. Praising his late bandmate's guitar playing, Reed told David Fricke, "Sometimes, I think his guitar playing is very much like his first name – sterling. It's involved. And yet it has a grace and elegance to it, even in the fast-note runs. You could play me a hundred guitars, and I could spot Sterling."[1]
Doug Yule, who joined the Velvet Underground later, stated that Morrison's greatest influence as a guitarist was Mickey Baker, a blues and R&B stylist known for "Love Is Strange", a hit single from 1957 as part of Mickey and Sylvia.[24]
Songwriting credits
While Reed was the main writer, there has been some conjecture that both Morrison and Cale made more songwriting contributions than is specified in the credits as Morrison later told Victor Bockris, "Lou really did want to have a whole lot of credit for the songs, so on nearly all of the albums we gave it to him. It kept him happy. He got the rights to all the songs on Loaded so now he's credited for being the absolute and singular genius of the Underground, which is not true. There are a lot of songs I should have coauthorship on, and the same holds true for John Cale. The publishing company was called Three Prong because there were three of us involved. I'm the last person to deny Lou's immense contribution and he's the best songwriter of the three of us. But he wanted all the credit, he wanted it more than we did, and he got it, to keep the peace."[1] Nevertheless, Morrison got co-writing credits on "European Son", "Here She Comes Now", "The Gift", "Sister Ray", "Hey Mr. Rain", "Ride into the Sun", "Foggy Notion", "Ferryboat Bill", "I'm Gonna Move Right In", "Coney Island Steeplechase" and "Guess I'm Falling in Love". He also co-wrote "Chelsea Girls" with Reed, the title track to Nico's debut solo album.[25]
Discography with the Velvet Underground
Only recordings with Morrison are listed. For the band's full discography, please see theVelvet Underground article.
Singles
"All Tomorrow's Parties" / "I'll Be Your Mirror" (1966)
"Sunday Morning" / "Femme Fatale" (1966)
"White Light/White Heat" / "Here She Comes Now" (1968)
"What Goes On" / "Jesus" (promo, 1969)
"Who Loves the Sun" / "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" (1971)
"Foggy Notion" / "I Can't Stand It" (promo, 1985)
"Venus in Furs" / "I'm Waiting for the Man" (live, 1994)
The Velvet Underground is the third studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Released in March 1969 by MGM Records, it was their first record with multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule, who replaced previous member John Cale. Recorded in 1968 at TTG Studios in Los Angeles, California, the album's sound—consisting largely of ballads and straightforward rock songs—marked a notable shift in style from the band's previous recordings. Lead vocalist Lou Reed intentionally did this as a result of their abrasive previous studio album White Light/White Heat (1968). Reed wanted other band members to sing on the album; Yule contributed lead vocals to the opening track “Candy Says” and the closing track "After Hours" is sung by drummer Maureen Tucker.
Loaded is the fourth studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground, released in November 1970 by Atlantic Records subsidiary Cotillion. It was the final album recorded featuring the band’s remaining original members, including the lead singer and primary songwriter Lou Reed, who left the band shortly before the album's release, and the guitarist Sterling Morrison, who left the band in 1971 along with the drummer Maureen Tucker. For this reason, it is often considered by fans to be the last "true" Velvet Underground album. The multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule remained and released the album Squeeze in 1973 before the band's dissolution the same year.
Peel Slowly and See is a five-disc box set of material by the Velvet Underground. It was released in September 1995 by Polydor.
Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker is an American musician, singer, and songwriter who achieved international fame as the drummer of the rock band the Velvet Underground. Tucker occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, including the songs "After Hours" and "I'm Sticking With You".
Douglas Alan Yule is an American musician and singer, most notable for being a member of the Velvet Underground from 1968 to 1973, serving as the bassist, guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist.
Gold is a two-CD compilation album by the Velvet Underground. It was released for the North American market on June 14, 2005, by Polydor, the record label that oversees the band's Universal Music Group back catalogue.
Final V.U. 1971–1973 is a box set by the Velvet Underground, comprising live recordings from after founding members Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison had left the group. It was released by Japanese record company Captain Trip Records in August 2001.
"Sister Ray" is a song by the Velvet Underground that closes side two of their 1968 album White Light/White Heat. The lyrics are by Lou Reed, with music composed by John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker and Reed.
"Femme Fatale" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground from their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico, with lead vocals by Nico.
"Heroin" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground, released on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. Written by Lou Reed in 1964, the song, which overtly depicts heroin usage and its effects, is one of the band's most celebrated compositions. Critic Mark Deming of Allmusic writes, "While 'Heroin' hardly endorses drug use, it doesn't clearly condemn it, either, which made it all the more troubling in the eyes of many listeners." In 2004, it was ranked at number 448 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and was re-ranked at number 455 in 2010.
"The Black Angel's Death Song" is a song by the Velvet Underground, from their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It was written by Lou Reed and John Cale. In a footnote to the lyrics, Lou Reed wrote: "The idea here was to string words together for the sheer fun of their sound, not any particular meaning."
"I Heard Her Call My Name" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground. It is the fifth track from the band's second album, White Light/White Heat. It is a particularly loud, brash and aggressive song that features a pair of atonal guitar solos performed by Lou Reed and repeated use of high pitched feedback.
"Sunday Morning" is a song by the Velvet Underground. It is the opening track on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It was first released as a single in December 1966. The song is written in the key of F major.
The ostrich guitar or ostrich tuning is a type of trivial tuning. It assigns one note to all strings, e.g. E-E-e-e-e'-e' or D-D-D-D-d'-d'. The term "ostrich guitar" was coined by the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed after the pre-Velvet Underground song "The Ostrich" by Lou Reed and the Primitives, on which he first recorded using this tuning, the first known commercial composition to make use of a trivial guitar tuning.
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released as the band's debut single in 1966. The song is from their 1967 debut studio album, The Velvet Underground & Nico.
"I'll Be Your Mirror" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico. It appeared on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It also surfaced as a single a year earlier with "All Tomorrow's Parties" in 1966.
"There She Goes Again" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground. It first appeared on their debut studio album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). The syncopated guitar riff is taken from the 1962 Marvin Gaye song "Hitch Hike". Guitarist Sterling Morrison has stated:
Metronomically, we were a pretty accurate band. If we were speeding up or slowing down, it was by design. If you listen to the solo break on "There She Goes Again," it slows down—slower and slower and slower. And then when it comes back into the "bye-bye-byes" it's double the original tempo, a tremendous leap to twice the speed.
"Venus in Furs" is a song by the Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and originally released on the band's 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. Inspired by the book of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the song includes sexual themes of sadomasochism and bondage.
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. It originally comprised the singer and guitarist Lou Reed, the Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, the guitarist Sterling Morrison and the drummer Angus MacLise. In 1965, MacLise was replaced by Moe Tucker, who played on most of the band's recordings. Though their integration of rock and the avant-garde earned them little commercial success, they are now widely regarded as one of the most influential bands in rock, underground, experimental, and alternative music. Their provocative subject matter, experimentation, and nihilistic attitude were also instrumental in the development of punk rock, new wave and several other genres.
Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground featuring Nico is a compilation album of the Velvet Underground released by MGM Records in 1971 that features selections from the band's first three studio albums. Originally released as a double LP, the cover artwork and inside gatefold sleeve feature imitations of Andy Warhol's paintings of Coca-Cola bottles, but are credited to other artists on the back sleeve of the album. The album was released in the UK to capitalise on the interest from Warhol's Pork.
↑ Bockris, Victor (1994). Transformer: The Lou Reed Story. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp.33–34. ISBN0-684-80366-6. Most importantly for Lou musically, it was at Syracuse that he met fellow guitarist Sterling Morrison...Sterling, who was never actually enrolled at Syracuse but spent a lot of time there hanging out and sitting in on some classes, was visiting another student, Jim Tucker, who occupied the room below Lou's.
↑ Hoffman, Eric. "Examinations: An Examination of John Cale". Mental Contagion. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2014. When I had to play viola, Sterling had to play bass, which he hated. According to the website, the quote is from John Cale's autobiography, What's Welsh for Zen (NY: St. Martin’s Press (2000).
↑ Taylor, Alan; Epstein, Anne (December 31, 2016). "The Port of Houston". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved September 6, 2019. For me, part of the allure of photographing workers of the Houston Ship Channel was my appreciation for Mark Twain, who was a pilot on the Mississippi River, and Sterling Morrison, guitarist for the Velvet Underground, who spent time as a tugboat captain on the Houston ship channel.
↑ Which also included later record company executive and record producer Bill Bentley on drums. Morrison joined the band at Bentley's invitation. Morrison was subsequently fired from the band, acrimoniously, with Bentley being the only band member voting to continue with Morrison. See Moser, Margaret (December 17, 1999). "Back Door Man: The Man Behind More Oar, Bill Bentley". The Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014.; see also Moser, Velvet Underdog: Sterling Morrison - An Oral History With Interviews. According to this latter history, Morrison first applied to doctoral studies at the University of Texas in 1969.
↑ Reed, Lou (December 31, 1995). "Sterling Morrison: Velvet Warrior". The New York Times Magazine. p.21. Archived from the original on October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 30, 2017– via Rocknroll.net.
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