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| Birth name | Douglas Alan Yule |
| Born | (1947-02-25) February 25, 1947 Mineola, New York, U.S. |
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Douglas Alan Yule (born February 25, 1947) is an American musician and singer, most notable for being a member of the Velvet Underground from 1968 to 1973.
Yule first met the Velvet Underground at his River Street apartment in Boston, which he rented from their road manager, Hans Onsager, and where the band would sometimes stay when they played in the city..
When John Cale left the Velvet Underground at the behest of Lou Reed in 1968, Yule joined the band (then consisting of Reed, Morrison and Maureen Tucker) as Cale’s replacement. Yule made his first studio appearance on their third album, The Velvet Underground (1969), playing bass and organ, as well as singing lead vocals on the ballad “Candy Says” which opens the album, and co-singing the chorus of the album’s penultimate track, “The Murder Mystery”, with Maureen Tucker. Yule’s contribution to the LP was considerable,
Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground following the final show of the Velvets’ summer residency at the New York club Max’s Kansas City in August 1970. With band manager Steve Sesnick looking to fill pending bookings, and with the upcoming release of Loaded in November of that year, Yule, Tucker and Morrison decided to continue performing as the Velvet Underground to promote the album. Yule took over lead vocals and switched his main instrument from bass to guitar, and Walter Powers was recruited as the Velvets’ new bass guitarist.
In 1974, Lou Reed contacted Yule to contribute a melodic bass track on his solo album Sally Can’t Dance (1974), on the song “Billy”, which closes the album, and Yule joined Reed’s band for the subsequent US and European tour as his guitar player. Following the tour the band dissolved, but Yule was called back by Reed in 1975 to record several guitar and bass tracks for his upcoming album Coney Island Baby,
When the Velvet Underground reformed in the early 1993, Sterling Morrison had campaigned for Yule’s involvement, but Lou Reed and John Cale ultimately overruled him, thus leaving Yule off the band’s six-week reunion tour of Europe, and the subsequent live album Live MCMXCIII
Controversially, Yule was not included in the original line-up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the Velvet Underground were inducted in 1996, despite his involvement with the band’s third and fourth albums, The Velvet Underground and Loaded, but it should be noted that the Hall of Fame (dismissed by Tucker as the “Hall of Lame”) has been criticized for their arbitrary manner in who they pick for nomination and induction
Bass Stuff 