Lou Reed’s sister says the late Velvet Underground mainman would have been delighted with his induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame – but he’d never have let on.
He died in 2013, aged 71, after suffering liver disease. He was honoured at the 30th annual ceremony in Cleveland last night, alongside Green Day, Joan Jett, Ringo Starr, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Bill Withers.
Sibling Merrill Reed Weiner tells Billboard: “For him to be honoured by his peers in this way, I know how much it would have meant to him – not that he would have let you know it.
“He wouldn’t be smiling the way I am. I think he’d be amused. I think he’d be sardonic, but he’d be secretly really, really delighted.
“Music meant the world to him and I wish he were here to see it.”
Reed was inducted by Patti Smith, who said: “True poets must often stand alone. As a poet, he must be counted as a solitary artist. Thank you for brutally and benevolently injecting your poetry into music.”
