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Doug Yule replaced
John Cale as bass player for
the Velvet Underground in late 1968, and went on to play on their third and fourth albums, as well as continue with the
Lou Reed-less version of the group for a while in the early 1970s. Of all the important members of the group from 1965 to 1970,
Yule is perhaps the most undervalued. He was not as colorful a character as either
Cale or
Nico, but as it happens, he is on more
Velvet Underground recordings (if you count live albums and outtakes unreleased until the 1980s and 1990s) than
Cale is. He was not nearly as innovative as
Cale, but he was a decent bassist and fit well into the 1969-1970 lineup that produced the group's best straightforward rock recordings.
In the late 1960s
Yule was living in Boston and playing guitar in the Grass Menagerie, a band also featuring well-regarded veterans of the Boston rock scene,
Willie Alexander and Walter Powers (who had both played in the Lost and recorded for Capitol). The Grass Menagerie never put out records, although they did some unreleased stuff for Vanguard and RCA.
Yule's qualifications for joining a top band (in musical importance, if not sales ) such as
the Velvets were not overwhelming. He wasn't even a huge fan of the group. But as often happens in these situations, when
Cale was ousted by
Lou Reed after some disputes in the summer of 1968,
Yule found himself in the right place at the right time. The Velvet Underground often played in Boston, and
Velvets manager Steve Sesnick was friends with people who lived in
Yule's apartment, so
the Velvets would sometimes stay there while they were in town. In that way
Yule got to know the band, and in October 1968, Sesnick offered
Yule Cale's position.
Yule had never even played with them or auditioned; they may have just felt that his personality was suitable, having already hung out with him.
Only a month or two after he joined,
Yule was recording with
the Velvet Underground on their third album,
Velvet Underground. Like his predecessor
Cale,
Yule played organ as well as bass, and also added some backup vocals. On "Candy Says," he took the lead vocal in a naive, tentative style that suited the fragile folk-rock ballad well. His vocals were not too dissimilar from those of
Lou Reed, although they weren't nearly as strong and tough. He also looked enough like
Lou Reed for people to assume they were brothers, and on
the Velvets'
1969: Velvet Underground Live album,
Reed even calls
Yule "my brother
Doug" when introducing the band before "Some Kinda Love."
With
Velvet Underground, the group entered a quieter, more song-oriented phase. As the posthumously released
1969: Velvet Underground Live proves, they could still rock out very hard, in concert too. The departure of
Cale robbed them of an avant-garde/classical edge:
Yule, unlike
Cale, could not play screechy viola, and did not put odd accents into their tracks, such as
Cale's gothic spoken narration on "The Gift" and his ominous piano on "All Tomorrow's Parties." However,
Yule was a solid and reliable bassist and backup singer, which suited the forceful rock of
1969: Velvet Underground Live, along with an album's worth of unreleased material cut between their third and fourth LPs (now available on various compilations), and the final studio album to be recorded with
Reed, 1970's
Loaded. As drummer Maureen Tucker told Victor Bockris for
the Velvet Underground biography Up-Tight, after
Yule replaced
Cale, "I don't think it hurt the music that much. I don't think it changed it to weaker music, it just changed it."
Although
Yule took an unassuming, back-seat sort of role in the band when he joined, by 1970 he was becoming more assertive and exerting more of a voice in the band's direction. This was partly because the other
Velvets were getting distracted around this time:
Tucker took a leave of absence after getting pregnant, and guitarist
Sterling Morrison was attending university. In 1995,
Yule told interviewer Pat Thomas, "
Lou leaned on me a lot in terms of musical support and for harmonies, vocal arrangements. I did a lot on
Loaded. It sort of devolved down to the
Lou and
Doug recreational recording."
Reed was still the songwriter and principal lead vocalist. However, in part because
Reed's voice was getting worn from live performances,
Yule took lead vocals on the key
Loaded tracks "Who Loves the Sun" and "New Age"; he also sings lead on the
Loaded outtake "Ride Into the Sun." In two of the three cases
Yule delivered, but it was a mistake to give him the lead vocal on "New Age," for as
Reed noted in the liner notes to the
Velvet Underground box
Peel Slowly and See, "No slur on
Doug, but he didn't understand the lyrics for a second." (
Lou Reed does have the lead vocal on the
1969: Velvet Underground Live version of "New Age.")
Yule also appears on the final
Velvet Underground recording to include both
Reed and
Yule,
Live at Max's Kansas City, from August 1970.
Reed left the band right after that performance, and
Loaded limped into the marketplace, with the group's principal creative figure and most charismatic performer not around to promote it. Permanent bad feelings arose between
Yule and
Reed as a result of the back sleeve credits, which virtually gave the impression that
Yule was the leader of the band, listing him first and crediting him with a wealth of instruments and songwriting contributions;
Reed was listed third.
In a sense, by that time
Yule was the leader of the band, though that in no way meant he was the leader for the
Loaded album. After
Reed quit,
the Velvet Underground kept on going, bringing in
Yule's old friend Walter Powers as a replacement, and even recording a couple of
Yule tunes for Atlantic in late 1970 (still unreleased). First
Morrison and then
Tucker left, and the band slogged on, with another ex-Grass Menagerie partner,
Willie Alexander, coming aboard. By the time
the Velvet Underground album
Squeeze came out in 1972, however, the
Velvet Underground name was essentially a front for
Doug Yule, recording with the assistance of
Deep Purple drummer
Ian Paice. The album was a commercial and critical bomb, a
Velvet Underground release in name only.
Surprisingly,
Yule did reunite briefly with
Reed in the mid-'70s, touring with him and playing bass on
Reed's
Sally Can't Dance album.
Yule was also part of the mainstream rock band American Flyer, with ex-members of
Pure Prairie League,
Blues Magoos, and
Blood, Sweat & Tears, before drifting out of the music business. As
the Velvet Underground legend grew over the decades, members and associates were interviewed at length, but
Yule, somehow, was rarely tracked down for this purpose. Finally, in the mid-'90s,
Yule did give a few lengthy interviews which added considerably to the body of memories and perspective available about the band. By this time he was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and working as a project manager for a cabinetmaker. He was not invited to participate in the
Velvet Underground reunions in the early 1990s, and was also not one of the members included in the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ~ Richie Unterberger