If you pick this one up expecting to find a lost "Waiting for the Man", you're going to be sorely disappointed. No, what's on Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65 is work for hire. Compiling songs written and sometimes performed by a young Lou Reed prior to The Velvet Underground, this set reveals the strengths of Reed as a working musician, and his seemingly natural ability to craft concise material that, while aimed at the charts, didn't quite set the world on fire like VU did later.
Pickwick Records was a budget label, operating even in the Seventies when I was a kid. Some of the records released by the imprint where cheap-o knock-offs of more well-known acts -- The Beachnuts doing their best surf rock approximations, that kind of thing. Most of these acts were studio-based, which is sort of besides the point when you hear these sides. What this collection does so well is provide a mirror image of the Top 40 charts in those years, at least the American side. "The Ostrich", a novelty dance tune, is a cousin to any number of dozens of more popular ones in the charts then, similarly "Soul City" by The Hi-Lifes sounds like both Chubby Checker and the earliest Motown acts. Elsewhere, "Johnny Won't Surf No More" is as insipid as any dozen or so lower-level female singers' hits in the era.
It's not a surprise, really, that none of these were big hits, though that wasn't their purpose really. Terry Philips, the guy behind Pickwick Records, was trying to sell product, sometimes on borderline deceptive practices as you can see from some of the sleeves in the booklet here with Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65. It's a fascinating journey you take when you play this. There's a lot of decent mimicry here, with snatches of fairly passable Ronettes and Righteous Brothers imitations in these sides. A cover of "Little Deuce Coupe" by The Surfsiders isn't going to fool anyone, but it's fun to hear a young Lou Reed sing something from the other coast. Dark and moody it's not though. Still, if you want to hear a working Lou Reed before he became a real artist (though there's artisty in this work too), this compilation is essential. And, given the presence of John Cale in The Primitives with Lou at one point, this really is the birth of The Velvet Underground, or at least the first date before conception.
Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65 is out this week from Light in the Attic Records.
[Photo Courtesy of Matthew Kloss]