Gratuitously quoted from the
Laurie Anderson FAQ:
Who is Laurie Anderson?
A poet, writer, visual artist, and social commentator, she is perhaps best known as a recording artist, one whose technical wizardry and live shows have earned
her a reputation as one of the most eccentric performers in the business.
She's a lot of things. In general she's known as a "performance artist." A performance artist is an artist who works in the medium of live performance. Laurie's
performances use a bewildering variety of media, including film, electronic and acoustic music, slides, costumes, and other weird effects that don't even have
names.
She has made several albums, and all of them are more or less "avant-garde." She began to actually sing starting with the Album "Strange Angels." Otherwise the vocals were primarily spoken.
Some common themes in her works are airplanes, dogs, family, the United States, dreams, and language.
- 1947 Born June 5 in Chicago, Illinois to Mary Louise Rowland Anderson and Arthur Anderson, the second oldest in a family of eight (four brothers, three sisters).
- 1965-6 Mills College, Oakland, CA.
- 1966-9 Barnard, graduates magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in art history.
- 1970-2 Columbia University, MFA in sculpture.
- 1970-4 Teaches art history at City College, New York; Staten Island College; and Pace University. Her courses include Egyptian; Assyrian architecture; survey
of art history.
She's basically one of the most
interesting musicians and
artists out there right now. Her
boyfriend is
Lou Reed and she has contributed to a few of his
albums, as well as
vice versa Here's an incomplete
discography:
You owe it to yourself to listen to a
Laurie Anderson album now.