Reverend Fred Lane

Reverend Fred Lane (b. Tim Reed) is a cult musician and recording artist who released two relatively obscure yet critically-appreciated albums in the 1980s, which explored various traditional genres of American music such as jazz, country, and big-band swing, but infused with improvisational experimentations and Dadaist free-associative lyrics.

Reverend Fred Lane is the performing pseudonym of Tim Reed, who was involved in the conceptual music scene at the University of Alabama in the city of Tuscaloosa in the mid-seventies. He was a member of the Raudelunas Marching Vegetable Band collective, influenced by the ’pataphysical theories of Alfred Jarry.

His stage persona displayed a devilish grin, goggle glasses, a well-oiled goatee, and various band-aids applied to his cheeks and scalp.

He released two albums in the early 1980s. "From the One That Cut You", credited to Fred Lane & Ron Pate's Debonairs, was inspired by a somewhat illiterate threat note found in a 1952 Dodge Panel truck. "Car Radio Jerome", credited to Fred Lane & the Hittite Hot-Shots, navigated his band through various hard-boiled fedora film noir scenarios, and was especially noted for the memorable parody of a children's nursery song, "The French Toast Man".

Tim Reed left the music business in the late 1980s to devote his career to mobile sculptures.