Love is an eclectic Psychedelic Rock and Proto Punk band from Los Angeles. Formed in 1965, they went through numerous configurations over the next few decades, but always with singer/multi-instrumentalist Arthur Lee as the guiding force. They began as one of the first multiracial rock bands, with Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols both being African-American, placing them alongside the likes of Sly and the Family Stone, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Sir Douglas Quintet.
The mercurial, eccentric Lee oversaw several distinct phases of their career. They first gained notice for a Proto Punk sound, reaching the Billboard Top 40 in 1966 with "7 and 7 Is", a song often viewed as a precursor to both Punk Rock and Heavy Metal. By their third album, Forever Changes, they'd shifted into a style that combined Psychedelic Rock, Folk Music and Baroque Pop influences, a mode that also suited rhythm guitarist and secondary songwriter/vocalist Bryan MacLean. But this incarnation ended after the album's release, with MacLean leaving for a solo career (he eventually became a Christian Rock artist, involved with the same church that Bob Dylan was during his Christian phase) and Lee dismissing everyone else and hiring a new band. By this point Love turned into Lee and whoever else he happened to have with him, with his music moving toward a Blues Rock/Hard Rock direction, and Lee also collaborating a bit with Jimi Hendrix on the side, but the final album of their original run, 1974's Reel to Real, was just Lee backed by session musicians.
After a few one-off reunions and attempts at a solo career, Lee reactivated the Love name in The '90s, but also ran into legal trouble, serving a prison sentence from 1996-2001 for negligent discharge of a firearm. In the meantime, Love's 60s music had gained renewed attention and the band had become regarded as a Cult Classic. Lee formed a new edition of Love after his release and performed up until his death from leukemia complications at age 61 in 2006. Three years later, Echols revived Love and they've performed sporadically since.
The band was a major influence on many later Punk Rock and Alternative Rock artists, with Forever Changes a constant presence on "greatest albums of all time" lists.
Studio Discography:
- 1966 - Love
- 1966 - Da Capo
- 1967 - Forever Changes
- 1969 - Four Sail
- 1969 - Out Here
- 1970 - False Start
- 1974 - Reel to Real
- 1992 - Arthur Lee & Love
- 2009 - Love Lost (Recorded in 1971)
- 2012 - Black Beauty (Recorded in 1973)
This band provides examples of:
- Continuity Nod: "Laughing Stock", B-side of the original lineup's final single, contains some lyrics from their first hit "My Little Red Book".
- Cover Version: They mostly did original material, but they took a stab at "Hey Joe" while it was circulating around the L.A. rock scene (before Jimi Hendrix made it his own), and their first big regional hit in California (and also a moderate success nationally) was a Garage Rock take on "My Little Red Book", written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the soundtrack of What's New Pussycat? and first recorded by Manfred Mann.
- Epic Rocking: "Revelation", a long jam taking up the entire second side of Da Capo which the band had used in concert to show off their instrumental skills. It was poorly received, and
Arthur Lee himself conceded that it was edited too much and unrepresentative of what it sounded like in concert. - I Am the Band: After Forever Changes, all of the other band members left, leaving Arthur Lee to carry on with a new lineup.
- Genre Mashup: Forever Changes draws from very diverse styles, and can be described as jazzy-psychedelic-baroque-latin-folk-rock-pop.
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: They were probably the first band with a singular name (rather than "The [x]") to achieve success.
- Greatest Hits Album: While not really a band that had hit singles, they've had a few notable compilations. 1970's Revisited was the first. Best of Love in 1980 was one of the first major reissue releases for Rhino Records, and Rhino also did the deluxe 2-CD Love Story: 1966-72 in 1996, which is considered an excellent introduction to the band, and interestingly contains the entirety of Forever Changes in sequence (though spread out between the end of disc 1 and the start of disc 2),
- Lead Bassist: Ken Forssi's bass playing is very melodic.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "Alone Again Or" has a bright, sunny chorus about how the narrator will always wait patiently for the one he loves, yet he knows that she won't come for him, leaving him to spend the night alone. He goes on to describe his love for people in general, all knowing that he will remain alone.
- Proto Punk: The band influenced many '70s and '80s punk rockers.
- New Sound Album: The melodic and lyrically complex Baroque Pop of 1967's Forever Changes is a major departure from the frantic Garage Rock of "7 and 7 Is." Though Forever Changes is consistently listed as one of the greatest albums of all time, Love rarely revisited that style of music (a notable exception is 1969's "Always See Your Face," which appears on the High Fidelity soundtrack).
- Revolving Door Band: Dozens of members have passed through the group, with Arthur Lee as the only constant while he was alive, though the 60s core of Lee, guitarists Johnny Echols and Bryan MacLean, bassist Ken Forssi and drummer Michael Stuart are considered the "classic" lineup.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark & Hilldale" accomplishes this by simply dropping words off the end of the line - usually the expected rhyming word will be the first word of the next couplet, eg:And oh, the music is so loudAnd then I fade into the...Crowds of people standing everywhere
- Word Salad Lyrics: Lee often favored this style, most famously on "7 and 7 Is".I'd sit inside a bottle and pretend that I was in a can
In my lonely room I'd sit my mind in an ice cream cone
You can throw me if you wanna 'cause I'm a bone and I go
Oop-ip-ip, oop-ip-ip, yeah
