ARTHUR LEE’S LEGEND LINGERS

ARTHUR LEE’S LEGEND LINGERS

FEATURES

Dave DiMartino

Through The Ages (Of Prophets, Seers and Sages):

There are stories about people like Iggy Pop, Brian Wilson, Lou Reed and Van Morrison. Most of these stories have words like genius, tremendously influential, tragic, and legendary floating around in them somewhere, right next to other words like disappointing, personal problems and misfit. And they all have one thing in common: they sound like obituaries written for people who haven’t died yet. What’s unspoken in such stories is usually this: it would be better if these people had died. Or at least neater, neater for rock history if Iggy had died two hours after recording Raw Power, Brian Wilson after Pet Sounds, Lou Reed after The Velvet Underground or Van Morrison after Astral Weeks. ESTABLISH THE LEGEND, THEN KINDLY EXIT is what’s unspoken. DON’T STAY AROUND TO TARNISH IT.

Some people might ^uggest that Arthur Lee has tarnished his legend. He blew it; he didn’t die when he should have. And of course nobody’s stupid enough to actually say these things, but had Arthur Lee been hit by a bus in Los Angeles minutes after recording Forever Changes in 1967 chances are he’d be much better known today. Which obviously is our problem and not his, because 14 years later Arthur Lee is still in Los Angeles and still alive, and a lot of other people aren’t.

In 1981, 11 albums are in record store racks and bargain bins bearing the name of Arthur Lee or Love. There’ll be another LP any day now on Rhino Records, and— however haphazardly—the “legend” that is Arthur Lee continues to grow, become better known and perhaps more commercially viable. Some people care, and some people don’t.

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In 1965, Love was the first rock band signed to Elektra Records, beating out Los Angeles compatriots the Dqors and getting there first with the same authenticated “folk-rock” the Byrds were making famous. Of course you’ve heard “My Little Red Book”—swiped from What’s New Pussycat and Manfred Mann, it’s a Burt Bacharach/ Hal David tune that Love made distinctly their own, a truly classic single that belied whatever folk-rock intentions the band had with a pulsating energy most bands today would give their eyeteeth for. Love (Elektra EKS-74001), the band’s first album, is an outstanding debut that today sounds only slightly dated, that due mainly to the then-topicality of the lyrics (“Mushroom clouds are forming/And the sky is dark and gray”) and the LP’s 1965 folk-rock production values. Through Love’s “Hey Joe” doesn’t hold up to the Leaves’ more frenzied version, it matches “My Little Red Book’”s adrenalin peak and hints at what was to be heard on the next Love set, Da Capo.

Singing “Hey Joe ” was Bryan Maclean, a central figure in Love for the band’s first three albums, though hardly as dominant as Lee. His “Softly To Me” was superbly elegant and, like the bulk of Lee’s own compositions, much more ''sophisticated melodically than standard mid-60’s rock fare. But “Orange Slues” from Da Capo (Elektra EKS-74005), Maclean’s only major contribution to the second Love LP, now sounds almost too sickly sweet and pretty (“Orange Skies/Carnivals and cotton candy and you”) especially when compared to Arthur Lee’s newest compositions. Where Maclean was unknowingly approaching movie soundtrack music, Arthur Lee was rocking out: Lee’s divinely schizoid “Stephanie Knows Who” (suitably covered by the Move long ago) and “Seven & Seven Is” are absolutely astounding bursts of rock intelligence that no one’s been able to top since—least of all Arthur Lee, some say. “Revelation,” the side-long jam that features Lee expounding punkily over a series of disparate solos (and sounds an awful lot like the Rolling Stones “Going Home,” too) isn’t nearly as groundbreaking, but certainly isn’t as bad as some critics would have it. Six new Love songs might have been better, though.

Forever Changes (Elektra EKS-74013), the third and last Love album featuring the Lee/Maclean pairing, is the band’s masterpiece—and certainly the best, most cohesive display of Arthur Lee’s talents. Critically hailed when it emerged in late 1967, the album continues to be influential today among new U.K. bands like the Psychedelic Furs, Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen, and not incidentally remains the only Love album still available in the Elektra catalog. Good God—“Alone Again Or,” the opening track penned by Maclean, was even covered by UFO a few years ago, if that’s not sufficient testimony to its drawing power . Today the album stands as Arthur Lee’s answer to Sgt. Pepper’s, to the mess that was L.A. in the late 60’s, to the Flower Power Lee poked fun at with the broken vase of dead flowers he held on the album’s back cover. Even today he calls it his “message to the world,” and whether he’s guilty of believing his own press notices or not, the evidence is inarguable. It’s my favorite album ever, and a lot of other people’s, too.

But Forever Changes spelled the end of Love-as-we-knew-it; two years later came Four Sail (Elektra EKS-74049) and Bryan Maclean and the others were nowhere to be seen. And here’s where most critics have closed the book on Arthur Lee—because nothing could ever top Forever Changes, they said, this new Love was a lost cause and a waste of time. Yet nothing could be further from the truth: new guitarist Jay Donnellan (nee Lewis, of West Coast band Morning) replaced the strings and orchestration of the 'last Love with a surging, powerful electric guitar that made “August,” Four Saifs opener, a heavy metal stunner, distortion-filled, frenetic guitarring, on top of Lee’s drug-innuendo of a lyric (“It’s with me wherever I go/.. .It keeps me together/it picks me up when I’m down...”). Lee’s songwriting chops had, if anything, increased—and the melodicism of earlier Lee tunes like Forever Changes’ “Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale” (Lee was always concise with song titles) was thlere to be found if one only looked.

Out of the same sessions that produced Four Sail came Out Here (Blue Thumb BTS 9000). This time things weren’t quite so ideal; two of the album’s four sides were filled with long instrumentals, one featuring a psychedelic-but-excessive guitar solo by an inexplicably new guitarist (Gary Rowles) and, horrors of horrors, a dreaded yawn of a drum solo that disrupted an otherwise fine Lee tune. For Arthur Lee and Love, it was the first hint that the possibility of expandable music was there, and it was a minor disappointment—though tunes like “Gather Round,” “Willow Willow” and “I Still Wonder” were still fine consolation.

With False Start (Blue Thumb BTS 8822), guitarist Donellari was off to begin a lucrative production career and was replaced by, of all people, Jimi Hendrix—at least for “The Everlasting First,” the album’s opening cut. Taken from a session that produced enough tracks for a full fledged Lee/Hendrix LP and is now (to Lee’s extreme chagrin) “misplaced” somewhere, the cut typifies the hard rock approach of the album’s remainder. Mystery guitarist Gary Rowles, from Out Here’s one track, plays on the LP’s other cuts, and while functional, he’s hardly as distinctive as Jay Donellan. Murking up the mix somewhat is vocalist Noony Rickett, a friend of Love bassist Frank Fayad, who accompanies Lee on most of the tracks and proves little more than a minor distraction. Nonetheless, False Start was a respectably commercial showing for Lee that by all rights should have provided him with the radio exposure he certainly needed at the time. It didn’t, though, and I guess we can blame Blue Thumb for that.

was so far ahead of my time, I just had to take a little nap and let everyone catch up... _ H

Next came Vindicator (A&M SP 4356). It was the summer of ’72—long after Riots On Sunset Strip were being talked about and seen, in movie theatres*—and the LP seemed to signal the official demise of Love. Credited to “Arthur Lee with the group Band-Aid” the album was eons away from the cool melodicism of Forever Changes and even Four Sail, sounding like the chaotic Hendrix track from False Start taken to its furthest Extreme. Interesting, though, was that it sounded—and still sounds—like an incredibly hot album, crammed with powerful guitar licks and carefully controlled excess. Musically, it was the tightest set since Four Sail, and a lot of that had to do With Lee’s backing band: guitarist Charlie Karp and bassist David Hull, who would later form RCA’s White Chocolate (and re-cut Lee and Karp’s “Busted Feet” as their own “Midnight Flight”) , were the best musicians Lee had had for years. They’d go on to prove it (sort of) later as the* Dirty Angels, but on Vindicator they were young and apparently willing to please. Though it’s impossible to find these days, Vindicator placed Arthur Lee among 70’s rock bigwigs much the same way the first three Love albums had likewise done years earlier.

Who would have ever thought there wouldn’t be any more hippies...

Reel-To-Real (RSO SO 4804),/released in 1974, was credited to yet another version of Love. This regains the last legitimate Lee album—and, unfortunately, it’s also the worst. After a relative silence of two years, Lee had returned with so few original new songs he’d had to re-cut “Singing Cowboy” from Four Sail and both “Busted Feet” and “Everybody’s Gotta Live” from Vindicator. Not to mention his cover of William DeVaughan’s “Be Thankful For What You Got,” which remains to this day an incredible song; Lee’s version, quite faithful to the original, is nonetheless not quite what we’d come to expect from the man who’d brought us Forever Changes and more. The album died a dismal death, perhaps deservedly (though it stil] sounds good to me), and with it died Arthur Lee’s last affiliation with a major record company.

Thus it was no small surprise in the summer of 1977 when an EP by Arthur Lee surfaced. On Da Capo Records, it featured four new songs—“I Do Wonder,” “Just Us,” “Do You. Know The Secret?” and “Happy You”—and was surprisingly good, reminiscent of the Lee’s Four Sail period, mostly. No details were given on the EP sleeve; it appeared to be British and relatively low budget, and that was simply that. Three years later, Lee himself told me the disc was “a ripoff” he received no money for,, the result of bad management and someone’s ill will. Good as it was, it provided Arthur Lee with not a single dime.

And that about wraps it up. Rhino Records managed to lease sufficient, material from Elektra to put together a Best Of Love set last year—since Elektra’s own went out of print years ago—and that, along with Forever Changes remains the only Love album still available in the States today. A British set called Love Masters (Elektra U.K. K 32002) may still be around; compiled by journalist John Tobler, it’s got interesting sleeve notes—but I must disagree with his assessment of the post-Forever Changes Love. It’s especially valuable, though, for its inclusion of “Laughing Stock,” “Your Mind And We Belong Together” and “Number Fourteen,” all 45’s by the pre-Four Sail Love not available on other Elektra albums.

What’s most heartening, though, is that Rhino Records ia about to release a new Arthur Lee album. This time it will include the four tracks from the earlier-mentioned EP—which means Lee will get royalties this time—and several tracks he and his most recent band have put down now as I write this. New material, a new label, and new exposure. It’s too bad it’s taken this long/ but at least it’s happening.

And 10 years from now, various Best Of Love albums will be in print, maybe even Forever Changes too, if Elektra can manage it, and all the music will sound as good then as it did in the 60’s and as it does even now, And Arthur Lee won’t have to be dead for it to make a difference. Maybe.

ARTHUR LEE AGAIN OR: 1981 UPDATE

Currently > Arthur Lee lives in the Los Angeles area, just like he always has. As far as music goes, he’s busier at this point than he’s been in years: recording new material for an upcoming Rhino LP, planning a tour in Japan and possibly the U.K., tracking down old tapes he’s made that haven’t been issued yet, and much more:

I spoke with him over the phone for about 45 minutes. Some of the more interesting bits of conversation:

How did you feel about that Rhino repackage of your older material?

It was alright for old stuff, man. It was alright. But I’d like to do some more up-todate stuff. Like the stuff that’s going tjo be coming out—that’s the stuff I’ve been doing the last couple of years. I have about three or four piles of music—albums worth of music—that hasn’t been released yet. I’ve been doin’ it, I’ve been out there recording, waiting for the right time. This is just a one album deal I’ve got with these guys [Rhino], you know? Just to get the feet wet, to see what’s happening. So what I wanna do is... (pause)...I wanna get another deal. I’m working on getting a major deal and a major recording contract.

Who’s in your band now?

I’ve been working with John Sterling and Melvin Wonder—they play guitars—Joe Blocker on drums, and this guy Sherwood Acuna on bass.

How old are you now?

How old am I?

Right.

Twenty-one.

Come on...

(Laughs) I know these pictures look a little old, but see—I was always—HAHA— ahead of my time. I just grew up early, before the rest of the kids.

Have you heard the Rumour’s version of “Little Red Book”?

No, I sure haven’t. I’d like to hear it, though.

Sounds like they liked your version too much to change it...

Really? Oh, I was listening to a record I just heard again the other night—that song “Talk, Talk’’?

By the Music Machine?

Yeah. Man, that guy really tried to rip me off. Just on that one song, that one style of singing. I never even sang like that again, in fact I never even sang like that, ya know? That was just a one-time-arounder. People must’ve dug that, I guess. I was just kidding when I used that voice...

Would you say you’ve been screwed over in the business?

Well ...(pause) That’s a pretty personal question, and I don’t really wanna talk about it. I don’t wanna implicate any names...(pause) Of course I’ve been fucked, everybody in music’s been fucked, unless you got somebody out there. I mean, I’m sure (sarcastically) that all the records that sold I got paid for, ya know? Each little record since 1965? That doesn’t make much sense to me... (pause) I wish it would make sense to me.. .1 mean, I’ve never even known how many records Forever Changes sold. I never got a gold record or anything. I’d just like to have a gold record, it’d be a trip. A few of ’em, a few of those records went gold, I know, but I’ll tell you wht happened: I think I forgot to go down and buy ’em or pick ’em up or something. You know—they told me stuff like that and I said “Well shit—I’m not gonna pay for my own gold record.” I mean I know “Seven And Seven Is” and “My Little Red Book” were gold.

I was so far ahead of my time, I just had to take a long nap and let everyone catch up, man. (laughs) Like I heard “Seven And Seven Is” yesterday, I was listening to one of those rock stations. I heard it on there and it blew me away.

Would you say Forever Changes is your best album?

Forever Changes were my last words of Love, you see. Forever Changes was—like this John Lennon trip, OK? The only thing different between Starting Over and Forever Changes was that he got shot and I didn’t. Can you understand? These were my last words. My last words to the world, and I’ve been here ever since, (laughs) Just like a guy saying goodbye, and you look out your front door and he’s still there. Fifteen years later. Those were my last words—I thought for sure I was...Well, I know I was real young, but I just thought that that would be the year for me to exit. It just made sense. I dunno.T sure am glad I didn’t though, ’cause I’ve learned so much since then.

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The crazy 60’s days, those were the days of Knowledge as far as I was concerned. And making gobs of money, man, that yjas really where it was at. (laughs) I liked that part. But you know—when you think you’ve got everything, and that this is the way things are gonna be...I mean, who would have ever thought that wouldn’t be any more hippies? Ya know? And who would havfe ever thought that that whole Love Generation, that whole Love crowd, would’ve went the way it did. Jesus, I never did. 1 still love those days, man—I mean, I was a dedicated person, dedicated to what I believed in. And I still live my life in pretty much the same way, ya know? I try to live pretty free. Time is really important, this is really an important thing we’re doing here, this is our lives r right?

Did somebody try to re-form Love a few years back?

Bryan Maclean and 1 did a couple of gigs together a few years ago, and we had the original two members of the group together at that time, but there hasn’t been an all-out effort to put the whole band together. 1 wouldn’t mind doingthat, though—it’d be a gas.

So it didn’t work out with Bryan?

Bryan, No...well yeah, it worked out with Bryan, I’m not gonna say it didn’t work out with Bryan... (pause) But like if he’s got something to do with his life, man, it’s his free will to do whatever he wants. He’s a very good writer, the way I feel about music—I like his style of writing, and I like him as a person. But some things he just has to go out and do for himself. People have to go through their trips, their changes, and find out what they really wanna do. And he chose—from what I understood—that’■he didn’t wanna do his trip with me. But if he changes his mind, well, ypu never cab tell. And I really don’t need Bryan to pay my bills...

What are your long-term plans?

You mean other than being the King Of Rock? Other than the King Of Rock ’n’ Roll, nothing. I’d just as soon be the King, myself. But I wanna do it my way. Those people [record company people and managers] were just so outdated with their living in a mansion and all their bullshit, man. I’ve always been right here with the crowd. I like to go through the front door and pay for the tickets to my own show and then walk onstage. That’s the way I like to do things, I don’t like the secrecy and all that bullshit. Because my friends and I—the friends I have left, that is (laughs).. .the ones that haven’t got shot yet (laughs harder).. .Uhh, hey, I stay home a lot...

And you don’t get shot...

I don’t even give a good fuck, and 1 guess that’s why good things like that don’t happen around here too much. I’m just out there with the people. Jesus, can you imagine somebody getting a thrill out of just walking down the street? I read something John Lennon said like that. Can you believe it? Can you imagine that somebody would have so much money they’d pass up the most important thing?

Jesus Christ, can you imagine having that much fame or that much money? I wouldn’t want that. I have too much fun in my life just living, visiting my friends and carrying on and playing records. I like it. I wouldn’t give that up for anything in the world—life’s too important, man, for people to be putting labels, little “God” jackets on people that they think are heaven sent. Like the Beatles or something like that. They better think again.

Whenever you put something before God or yourself, you’re gonna get in trouble. You know what I’m saying. You’ve got to believe in something—if you believe in Gqd that’s really super-great, and believing in yourself is believing in God, too. But anytime you put a group, or an idol, or a woman or a man, or whatever— before God or yourself, you’re gonna come up with the short stick every fuckin’ time. I mean I knew that all the time—but sometimes you have a tendency to forget. Know^ what I’m saying? ^