John Cale

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2004

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is John Cale, a classically trained musician who went on to found one of the most influential bands of the 1960s, Velvet Underground. John Cale was brought up in a strict South Wales household. His maternal grandmother insisted that Welsh was the only language to be spoken in the house even though his father spoke only English. His childhood was solitary - he was an only child and his mother encouraged him to spend hours each day practising his piano playing, and he later took up the viola. He went on to have viola lessons at the Royal Academy of Music while also studying music at Goldsmiths' Teacher Training College in London.

He was talent-spotted by Aaron Copland and awarded a musical scholarship to study in America, where he was part of the contemporary avant-garde music scene there, working with John Cage and LaMonte Young, until he met Lou Reed and the two formed Velvet Underground. Their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, remains their best known. Andy Warhol is credited as producer, it features Nico on vocals and the cover is the famous Warhol banana. He went on to produce some of the most influential artists of the time and has made New York his home - although Wales continues to exert some draw over him. He continues to write music and tour.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: She Belongs To Me by Bob Dylan Book: Repetition by Alain Robbe-Grillet Luxury: Express coffee machine with coffee beans

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a musician born and brought up in the conservative and protective
0:35.0	atmosphere of a South Wales mining valley, he spent his life on a journey of escape and experiment.
0:41.3	In the 60s he formed a band with Lou Reed called Velvet Underground,
0:44.7	which despite its brief existence has had a huge influence on the development of popular music.
0:49.7	He trained at Goldsmiths College London, won a scholarship to the prestigious summer school at Tanglewood in Boston,
0:56.0	and then took himself to New York where he worked with Andy Warhol.
0:59.6	He went on through the 70s and early 80s, fueled by drink and drugs, writing and producing music
1:05.1	and performing the odd sensational act, such as chopping off the head of a chicken during a concert.
1:10.7	The last 20 years have been rather quieter. He's written a ballet, recorded a classical album,
1:16.0	set poetry to music, and continued to experiment with his distinctive brand of rock.
1:22.0	At the same time, he struggled to come to terms with his Welsh
1:25.3	roots. I've never felt my environment was Welsh, he says, but in my mind it still has an
1:31.9	effect. He is John Cale. What effect does it have then
1:36.7	this Welshness, John? Because after all you've lived in New York probably twice as
1:40.5	long as you lived in Wales, wouldn't you? Just about.
1:43.0	I can't really put my finger on it.
1:45.0	I just recognize it every time I cross the border.
1:47.0	As long as I go across that seven bridge and I go down into Sundialoa, Camart come out and the countryside and it definitely has an effect and I
1:56.1	don't know what it is but the language also has a lot of resonance.
2:02.0	But the implication of what I quoted you saying is that you would like
	...

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