Name at birth: Lewis Allen Reed

Guitarist Lou Reed co-founded and wrote most of the songs for the New York rock group The Velvet Underground (1965-70), the influential band which recorded such cult favorites as "Heroin,", "Sweet Jane" and "Sister Ray." The Velvet Underground, at first associated with Andy Warhol and the singer Nico, was never a huge popular success, but it has been credited with influencing a generation of punk and post-punk rockers in the 1970s and '80s. During the '70s Reed and David Bowie were among the top acts in "glam rock," a theatrical style of gender-bending rock and roll. Reed's solo hits from the '70s include "Walk On The Wild Side" and "Street Hassle," as well as re-vamped versions of several of his Velvet Underground songs. By the end of the 1990s, Reed was an elder statesman of rock and roll, a mature songwriter with a reputation for thoughtful urban ballads. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.