Andy steals doo wop Lou digs?

Not sure whether the above is an actual release or merely a figment of someone's imagination but this is such a good, and obvious, idea it ought to be summoned into existence forthwith: a compilation of doo wop records favoured by Lou Reed and Frank Zappa.


An article by Frank Henderson on the Fire Records website, findable here, lists a whole CD's worth of songs and directs the reader to the Fidelity Masters site, here, although this contains no mention that I can see of this notional album.

It's possible to quibble about the selections. Reed told The Word that he liked "anything by the Flamingos" but they are not represented here, nor is there any sign of his idol, Dion. But I'm delighted to see the Five Satins' Somewhere A Voice Is Calling (in its acapella form, I trust) and overall this is an interesting mix of the familiar and less familiar, such as might prove acceptable to hipster novices afeared of more hit-laden introductions: "the tip of a multi-harmony iceberg", as Mr Henderson says (and if the sounding cataract haunted the young Wordsworth like the Passions I don't see why icebergs can't have harmonies).

Here is the proper version of that Five Satins recording:

This compilation has reminded me of a matter which has been occupying me on and off for some time: the theft of Lou Reed's doo wop records in the sixties. Evidence is inconclusive but I suspect Andy Warhol was behind this: Reed's cherished doo wop 45s (yes, yes, and his Gretch guitar; that's but a trifle here) were stolen while he was performing as part of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable in New York in April 1966. And I reckon Andy could easily have snuck off, cackling all the while, to do the deed while Lou was safely onstage, as illustrated by the photomontage below:

But if he was indeed the culprit - and bear in mind I'm making no accusations - I'd like to believe that warring sensations of guilt and delight served to check his enjoyment of the purloined discs and stifle creative stirrings in the area of doo wop-related graphics ever after, for fear of inadvertently exposing the source of his inspiration to his protege - a case, you might say, of The Tell-Tale Heartbeats.

*

The importance of Dion to Lou Reed's work is well known. Asked about musical influences he told The Word's John Medd:

I got the Sound of the Hound out of Buffalo, New York ...and other stuff on the soul station. Everything was from the radio ... all the soul guys, the rockabilly people, everything that Dion was listening to, and I was listening to Dion. Later on I inducted him into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which was pretty great for me ...

Here is part of that speech, taken from Dion's official website, with more details of the artists Reed listened to:

It was 1958, and the cold winds of Long Island blew in from the ocean, their high-pitched howl mixing with the dusty, musky, mellifluous liquid sounds of rock and roll -- the sounds of another life, the sounds of freedom.

As Alan Freed pounded a telephone book and the honking sax of Big Al Sears seared the airwaves with his theme song “Hand Clappin’,” I sat staring at an indecipherable book on plane geometry, whose planes and angles would forever escape me. And I wanted to escape it and the world of SAT tests the college boards — leap immediately and eternally into the world of Shirley and Lee, The Diablos, The Paragons, The Jesters, Lilian Leach and the Mellows (“Smoke from Your Cigarette”), Alicia and the Rockaways (“Why Can't I Be Loved?” — a question that certainly occupied my teenage time). The lyrics sat in my head like Shakespearean sonnets, with all the power of tragedy: “Gloria,” “Why Don’t You Write Me, Darling, Send Me a Letter” by The Jacks.

And then there was Dion — that great opening to "I Wonder Why" engraved in my skull forever. Dion, whose voice was unlike any other I had heard before. Dion could do all the turns, stretch those syllables so effortlessly, soar so high he could reach the sky and dance there among the stars forever. What a voice — that had absorbed and transmogrified all these influences into his own soul, as the wine turns into blood, a voice that stood on its own remarkably and unmistakably from New York — Bronx Soul. It was the kind of voice you never forget. Over the years that voice has stayed with me, as it has, I'm sure, stayed with you. And whenever I hear it I'm flooded with memories of what once was and what could be.

It's been my pleasure to get to know Dion over the years and even, my idea of heaven, sing occasional backup for him. He doesn't know how long I'd rehearsed those bass-line vocals. I was ready to back up Dion. He had the chops, and he practically invented the attitude. "Ruby Baby," "Donna the Prima Donna," “The Wanderer” … "I'll tear open my shirt and show her 'Rosie' on my chest," a line so good that twenty-odd years later I couldn't resist doing a variant on it for one of my own albums.

After all, who could be hipper than Dion?

Were I to nominate a track for some future volume of Lou & Frank Dig Doo Wop it would undoubtedly be Dion and the Belmonts' insouciant Love Came to Me: at one point during the bridge Dion gives a kind of laidback chuckle ("Love makes me, uh, makes me feel so good") which calls to mind Sweet Jane.