Among numerous vital pop music figures the Grammy Awards originally overlooked was the Velvet Underground, the proto-punk New York quartet of which it's been said its debut album sold only a few thousand copies, but everyone who bought one started a band of his or her own.
Grammys certainly weren't on the mind of singer, guitarist and songwriter Lou Reed, according to his biographer, veteran Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, a Grammy winner for his liner notes for the 1988 Eric Clapton box set "Crossroads."
"He certainly never mentioned the Grammys to me, and the subject would have elicited eye-rolling on his part, I'm sure," DeCurtis told The Times earlier this week. "He had grown used to feeling mistreated by the music industry and even seemed to relish the outsider status that conferred on him."
During his life, Reed received just one Grammy _ the 1998 award for long form music video for the "American Masters" documentary "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart." But as often has been the case throughout the Grammys' 60-year history, the Recording Academy is making up for one of its past oversights by presenting the Velvets with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday.
"While he never would have admitted it," DeCurtis said, "the Lifetime Achievement Award going to the Velvet Underground this year would have been meaningful to him, and I'm sure he would have shown up to accept it _ especially since the awards are in New York.
"He would have thought, 'It's about (expletive) time'," he said, "but, secretly, he would have been happy."
