Here are ten covers, recorded over the first lockdown of 2020.

John Davies Cale, OBE (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his seven-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, drone, classical, avant-garde and electronic music.[5]

He studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before relocating in 1963 to New York City's downtown music scene, where he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music and formed the Velvet Underground. Since leaving the band in 1968, Cale has released 16 solo studio albums, including the widely acclaimed Music for a New Society. Cale has also acquired a reputation as an adventurous producer, working on the debut albums of several innovative artists, including the Stooges and Patti Smith.[6]

Early life and career
John Davies Cale was born on 9 March 1942 in Garnant in the industrial Amman Valley of Wales to Will Cale, a coal miner, and Margaret Davies, a primary school teacher.[7] Although his father spoke only English, his mother spoke and taught Welsh to Cale, which hindered his relationship with his father,[7] although he began learning English at primary school, at around the age of seven.[7] Cale was molested by two different men during his youth, an Anglican priest who molested him in a church and a music teacher.[7][8][9]

Having discovered a talent for viola, Cale studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London. While he was there he organised an early Fluxus concert, A Little Festival of New Music, on 6 July 1964. He also contributed to the short film Police Car and had two scores published in Fluxus Preview Review (July 1963) for the nascent avant-garde collective. He conducted the first performance in the UK of Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra, with the composer and pianist Michael Garrett as soloist. In 1963, he travelled to the United States to continue his musical training with the assistance and influence of Aaron Copland.[10]

Upon arriving in New York City, Cale met a number of influential composers. On 9 September 1963 he participated, along with John Cage and several others, in an 18-hour piano-playing marathon that was the first full-length performance of Erik Satie's "Vexations". After the performance Cale appeared on the television panel show I've Got a Secret. Cale's secret was that he had performed in an 18-hour concert, and he was accompanied by Karl Schenzer, whose secret was that he was the only member of the audience who had stayed for the duration.[11] Cale would later attribute Cage's writings with his own "relaxed" artistic outlook, having hitherto been raised to believe that European composers were obliged to justify their work.

Cale also played in La Monte Young's ensemble the Theatre of Eternal Music, also known as the Dream Syndicate (not to be confused with the 1980s band of the same name). The heavily drone-laden music he played there proved to be a big influence in his work with his next band, the Velvet Underground. One of his collaborators on these recordings was the Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison. Three albums of his early experimental work from this period were released in 2001.

Substance abuse
As a child, Cale suffered from severe bronchial issues, which led to a doctor prescribing him opiates.[61] He would come to rely on the drug in order to fall asleep.[61] Biographer Tim Mitchell claims Cale's early dependence on medicine was a "formative experience".[61] Cale later told an interviewer that, "When I got to New York, drugs were everywhere, and they quickly became part of my artistic experiment".[62]

He was heavily involved in New York City's drug scene of the 1960s and 1970s, with cocaine as his drug of choice.[62][63] He is said to have "taken most of the available drugs in the United States." Cale has said that, "In the '60s, for me, drugs were a cool experiment... In the '70s, I got in over my head."[62]

Cale feels his drug addiction negatively affected his music during the 1980s. He decided to clean up following a series of embarrassing concerts and the birth of his daughter.[62] According to a 2009 BBC interview, the "strongest drug" he was then taking was coffee.[62] Cale has also hosted a documentary called Heroin, Wales and Me to promote awareness of the problems of heroin addiction, easy availability and low cost of the drug in his native Wales and thousands of addicts.[64]