"Where's Doug Yule?" a DJ asked Lou Reed in 1972, during an interview with WLIR radio.
There was a pregnant pause. Lou answered: "Dead, I hope."
Most Velvet Underground fans have stopped short of wishing death upon Doug Yule, who played bass in the VU from late 1968 to the summer of 1970. But his reputation remains less than stellar—and when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, he was noticeably absent.
There are two basic reasons for Yule's low standing in the VU hierarchy:
- Doug Yule is not John Cale, who co-founded the band with Reed and guitarist Sterling Morrison in 1965 and was forced out due to irreconcilable differences in 1968.
- Yule is responsible for the existence of Squeeze, the in-name-only Velvet Underground LP recorded long after Reed, Morrison, and drummer Maureen Tucker had jumped ship.
The first charge is easy enough to counter. Pretty much no one is John Cale, a Welsh coal miner's son, genius multi-instrumentalist, and fearless boundary-pusher whose solo career rivaled Reed's over the decades. The second one is a bit tougher. Squeeze is not a great album, by any stretch of the imagination. But it's not quite as bad as some say—and had it been released as a Doug Yule solo LP (he played everything on it except drums, after all), it might be enjoying a renaissance right now, perhaps being reissued by a tastemaking label like Light in the Attic with reviews reassessing its low-key charms. (As it stands, you can check Squeeze out for yourself on Spotify).
And yet Yule, an extraordinarily talented musician who was an integral part of some the finest rock and roll ever made, deserves recognition and respect. Here's why:
Exhibit A: La Cave, Cleveland, Oct. 2, 1968
Yule joined the Velvets immediately following Cale's departure in late September of 1968, and was almost immediately thrown into the deep end. The 21-year-old's first public outing with the band took place at the tiny La Cave club in Cleveland (where the Velvets had performed the legendary "Sweet Sister Ray" earlier that year). Now, as any of the thousands of garage bands who have covered the VU know, the songs themselves are not terribly complicated (Reed's famous quote: "One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."). Performing them convincingly is something else entirely, requiring fluidity, flexibility, and, most importantly, a sense of adventure. Judging from the oft-bootlegged tape of the La Cave set, Yule delivered on all accounts, slipping easily from a vicious "Move Right In" to a startlingly beautiful "Jesus" and harmonizing beautifully with Reed on the latter. On a 10-minute rollercoaster ride through "Foggy Notion", Reed and Morrison almost seem as if they're trying to trip their new recruit up, blasting through the changes (and maybe making up a few new ones along the way). Yule is unflappable, locking in with Tucker's relentless 4/4, sounding right at home.
Exhibit B: "Candy Says"
Yule's trial by fire wasn't over yet, however. Just a few weeks after the La Cave gig, the Velvets headed west to L.A. to record their third LP. Having just joined the band, Yule might have reasonably expected to play a supporting role in the proceedings. Instead, he was asked to take the lead vocal on the album's opening track, "Candy Says", a song that stands as one of Reed's towering achievements. Once again, Yule stepped up the plate and knocked it out of the park. Reed later somewhat condescendingly claimed that his young protege had no idea what he was singing about (something Yule more or less confirmed later), but Yule's hauntingly fragile performance is perfect for Reed's empathetic portrait of Warhol "superstar" Candy Darling. Lou must have agreed—he rarely attempted the song in his solo career until he came across a vocalist capable of matching Yule in Antony Hegarty.
Exhibit C: "What Goes On," live at the Matrix, November 1969
During his time with the Velvets, the classically trained John Cale leapt from bass to viola to organ to piano. Yule couldn't take over viola duties, but throughout 1969, his keyboard skills were increasingly brought to the fore, especially on the VU's churning masterwork, "What Goes On". On a live recording included on Live 1969 and freshly remastered from the original tapes for the new Complete Matrix Tapes box set, Yule rides the neverending wave of interlocking guitar and drums for close to nine minutes, conjuring up a swirling celestial sound. Sterling Morrison later suggested that early, unrecorded live versions of "What Goes On" with Cale were definitive. But it's hard to imagine them—or anything, really—being better than this.
Exhibit D: Loaded
The Velvet Underground's swan song (discounting the aforementioned Squeeze) was, by most accounts, made by a splintered band, with Tucker on maternity leave and a disillusioned Morrison taking on a more muted role. That left Reed and Yule as the primary architects of the VU's "loaded with hits" stab at crossover success. And while Reed was undoubtedly still steering the ship, the demos, alternates, and outtakes included on the new, six-disc Re-Loaded box set show that the collaboration was a close one. Yule is all over the tapes, contributing bass, keyboards, drums, lead guitar, vocals, and even a dramatic string arrangement to "Ocean", which was left unreleased until 1995 (and powerful enough that it was originally credited to Cale). The songs may have been Lou's, but the sound relies heavily on Doug—and it's his voice and lead guitar that send the Velvets on their way with the album's slow, sad closer "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'". Brought in less than two years earlier as a mere replacement bassist, Yule had made himself an indispensable part of the VU saga.