Lou Reed - All Tomorrow's Dance Parties

Found this little gem hiding in the 7" bin at the record store where I'm currently employed. It's a 2000 reissue on Norton of Lou Reed's earliest recordings. The first side is two songs written by Reed and recorded with studio musicians in late 1962. They were recorded for a producer named Bob Shad and were apparently Lou's first lead vocal performances. Side B was recorded in 1958 with Lou Reed's high school "band" called The Jades. On the back of the sleeve it quotes Reed as saying "The Jades wasn't a band. It was just one guitar and two other guys singing." Phil Harris was the lead singer for this band so I don't think Lou actually sings on these tracks, though they did get studio cat King Curtis to play sax on the recording. Lou Reed was 16 years old when these songs were recorded. The music is FAR from any similarities to the Velvets and is much more straight forward 50's pop music. The songs are great though, and it's really neat to hear where this iconic American musician got his start.