Lee Ranaldo
Lee M. Ranaldo (b.
February 3 1956) is an
American singer and
guitarist, probably best known as a cofounder of the
rock band
Sonic Youth.
Ranaldo was born in
Glen Cove,
Long Island,
New York, and graduated from
Binghamton University. He has one son,
Cody Linn Ranaldo, and is married to the
experimental artist Leah Singer, with whom he has performed many live installation pieces with
improvised music.
Among Ranaldo's solo records are
Dirty Windows, a collection of
spoken texts with music,
Amarillo Ramp (for
Robert Smithson), pieces for the guitar, and
Scriptures of the Golden Eternity. His books include
Bookstore,
Road Movies, and
Jrnls80s. A full-length book of writings on
Moroccan travels and music, as well as a book of new
poems,
Lengths & Breaths, are out now. Recent visual work has been included in exhibitions at the
Hayward Gallery in
London, the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art and
Mercer Union in
Toronto.
Ranaldo has produced albums for artists including
Babes in Toyland,
You Am I, Deity Guns, and
Dutch art rock-ensemble
KLEG. He also released a book of his poetry (published by
Soft Skull Press), and has edited a volume of tour journals from the
1995 Lollapalooza Tour written by
Thurston Moore,
Beck,
Stephen Malkmus,
Courtney Love, and others. Ranaldo worked with
jazz drummer
William Hooker on
improvised music, and reading and improvising
poetry.
In 2004,
Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo and
Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth, the 33rd and 34th best guitarists of all time.
Ranaldo usually uses
Fender Jazzmaster electric guitars, with radically altered tunings, and modifications.
