T HE NUMEROUS album tributes to the late Lou Reed have often taken The Velvet Underground route. Not for Bill Bentley, the Texas-based writer, one-time Sterling Mor rison bandmate, Reed’s US publicist from 1988 to 2004 and producer of tributes to Roky Erickson, Skip Spence and Doug Sahm. Eleven of the 12 covers he’s assembled on The Power Of The Heart are devoted to the great man’s solo years. “I was missing not having Lou in my life,” Bentley explains.
“I missed his spirit. So, I started this record.”
Those paying tribute include Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Jett, Lucinda Williams, Rosanne Cash, The Afghan Whigs, Bobby Rush, Angel Olsen and – the last to be asked – Keith Richards, who donates a grizzled I’m Waiting For The Man, the sole VU cover. “You don’t say no to Keith!” says Bentley. “But it’s fitting, because they were contemporaries back in the day.”
The first to commit was Jones, tur ning Walk On The Wild Side into a sensual barfly vamp. “I didn’t think anyone could cover Walk On The Wild Side, but Rickie took it to another place,” says Bentley. “That’s what you want in a cover. Lucinda, too, blew my mind with her originality.”
Lucinda Williams, who swings, countr ystyle, through Legendar y Hearts, only met Reed once, backstage at one of his LA shows. “I was working up a version of [VU classic] Pale Blue Eyes at the time,” she says.
“Lou wrote the chords down for me, which was a sweet moment.” Williams later invited Reed to join her on-stage in New York. “Lou couldn’t make it, but he said we would have sung Legendar y Hearts together, and I never forgot that.”
Of all the voices paying tribute, Rufus Wainwright – who breathes new life into Perfect Day – knew Reed best.
After Reed appeared at 2008’s Wainwright-McGarrigle family Christmas shindig, the pair became clos
