1972 initially wasn’t panning out so well for Lou Reed, it had been two years since the last Velvet Underground release and his first solo effort, the imaginatively titled “Lou Reed” had been a disappointment to just about all, Lou Reed probably more than most.

Things were going quite differently for David Bowie, “Hunky Dory” was just a few months old when “Lou Reed” was released and was being hailed as a classic, instead of resting on his laurels he released possibly his best album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” in June. He was at this point so prolific he was happy to just give away the near perfect single “All the Young Dudes” to a fledgling band from somewhere near Wales with a silly name. Oh yes, and somewhere among all of this he found time in 1972 to collaborate with Lou Reed on one of the best things to feature either men’s name

Recorded in just two weeks the session was, by all accounts manic. Bowie along with his guitarist and right hand man Mick Ronson would record Transformer in the daytime before playing shows around the UK at night. Lou Reed was drugged to near catatonia and couldn’t understand a word Ronson was saying thanks to his Hull accent. Despite this formidable communication barrier it’s Ronson, by all accounts, who was the unsung hero of the album, playing multiple instruments and contributing innovative arrangements.while Bowie was occasionally found in the studio bathroom weeping.

Take “Perfect Day” for instance, initially arranged around guitar, it was Ronson who slowed the song down and instead framed Reed’s vocal with a simple piano line and a striking string arrangement, a move that gave the song a universal appeal so broad that twenty years later it was equally at home soundtracking a Ewan McGregor Heroin overdose or as a celebrity sing along single for a UK Children’s Charity.

Make no mistake though, while the outfit was new, this is still very much the same Lou Reed of the Velvet’s underneath as evidenced by the only single to be taken from the album, “Walk on the Wild Side” . A series of short narrative verses, each one based on one of Andy Warhol’s “superstars” from the Factory. The song touched on subjects like cross dressing, transsexuality, drugs, male prostitution and famously only avoided censorship by the BBC and many major US radio stations because, apparently, no one knew what phrases like “giving head” actually meant.

The other notable thing about Walk on the Wild side is “that bass line”, a legitimate celebrity of the bass line world, sampled by a Tribe Called Quest among others, it’s actually two bass lines entwined, a double bass and an electric bass. Asked about the creative genesis of this the bass player, Herbie Flowers, explained that if he could find an excuse to overdub two bass lines on a song he got paid double.

Other notable tracks include the aptly named kickoff track “Vicious” and the ballad “Satellite of Love”. Vicious was inspired by Andy Warhol’s exhortation to Lou to “write a song called Vicious”. When Lou asked for clarification Warhol explained “Oh, you know, vicious like I hit you with a flower.” and the rest, as they say…

Two more things to know about Transformer, It has one of the best sleeves of all time (front and back) and, yes, it sounds great, Ken Scott mixed it.