John Cale’s musical journey knows no limits

LOS ANGELES - Just a few years after he'd left the provincial Welsh mining town where he was born, a 23-year-old John Cale was invited - along with his friend Lou Reed and their budding band the Velvet Underground - to Andy Warhol's Factory in New York.

"The first day you walked in, you joined the Academy," Cale said in the industrial but cozy lounge of his studio on a recent afternoon, recalling the first meeting with the pop art power broker who would become the band's manager. "The atmosphere of that place was really special," he added; artists from all over "came in and unzipped a bag of magic."

The musician, now 80, was reminiscing on an uncharacteristically gloomy January day in Los Angeles. Cale seemed to have summoned the Welsh weather along with his memories, and sat bundled up in a black puffer jacket and wool socks. "That's the first thing you remember: all...