Love - "Da Capo" Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono, 1966 (Elektra)

Love's second album.   More musicians and fewer songs on the second round.  The first six songs on the A-side is magnificent.  The band was progressing soundwise from the first album to "Da Capo" and what one hears here, can see the congo line that led to "Forever Changes."  Another significant change was to remove Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer from the drums to organ and harpsichord.  His playing gives the first side a masterful baroque pop feel to the material.  Also, the addition of Tjay Cantrelli on sax and especially flute adds a potent part of the cocktail to the Love sound.  Johnny Echols' guitar blends into the orchestration of the songs, as a soloist, but as part of the overall power of its instrumentation. Most of the songs are by Arthur Lee, but Bryan MacLean's "Orange Skies" is just heartbreakingly beautiful.  "7 and 7 Is" my favorite garage/punk/god knows what piece of sonic delight.  When I was a child, I couldn't get enough of this song. In Los Angeles, it was played on the AM radio, and it was like a spiritual being was connecting to me as a listener who had the portable radio glued to my ear.  Perfection!

It's interesting to compare "Da Capo" to another album that was recorded and released that year (1966) and sharing the same recording studio (RCA Studios in Hollywood) and engineer, David Hassinger and that is The Rolling Stones' "Aftermath."   Like Love, the Stones were experimenting with instrumentation within the pop song format, and both had a long jam track.  The Stones' "Goin' Home" and Love's "Revelation."   Without a doubt, both are very similar.  "Aftermath" came out first, but Arthur Lee claims that the Stones saw Love do this song live, and therefore copied or inspired to do their own version.  The big difference between the two is that Stones' song lasts for ten minutes, and Love's "Revelation" takes up the entire side of the album.    Musically it's different, but sonically and recording wise it's a brother or sister related recording. 

The prevailing opinion is that no one talks about "Revelation," but for me, it works on different levels.  For one, the guitars are great and how they interact among the musicians is fantastic, and the opening and closing of the piece is Pfisterer's harpsichord, him playing Bach's "Partita No. 1 BWV 825."  I like the frame of Bach and having "Revelation" caught between the old world, and the then recent Sunset Strip jam piece.  "Da Capo" is the beautiful bridge between "Love" and "Forever Changes." 

Love - "Love" Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono, 1966 (Elektra)

Love, the band, from my hometown Los Angeles.   I was 12 when this album was released.   I have no recollection of them before "Love" was released.  I imagined that they played on the Sunset Strip. Still, this album is the best music to come out of Los Angeles 1966.  I always felt that they were sophisticated.  Not exactly a garage rock band, but something classy.  I listen to this album 51 years later, and I'm still in love with the sound made by Arthur Lee and others.  

Arthur Lee, perhaps the lead Love (with Byran Maclean as secondary importance in the band) had a rare talent to throw an unusual lyric, such as "slip, slip, slip" in "A Message to Pretty."  Johnny Mathis sounding on the ballads, or rocking with intensity on the upbeat numbers.  It's not surprising that they covered Bachrach/David's "My Little Red Book."  There are these jazzy approaches to the straight ahead pop song in Love's work.  Maclean also had an incredible voice; that's angel-like but perhaps carrying brass knuckles behind his back.   There is something very street/smart about Love.  The Byrds I know are Los Angeles based, but I sense Love was more in tuned to the streets of L.A. and all the by products of that culture. 

Love's first album sound is the very rhythmic guitars with a beat.  It reminds me of Lou Reed in the Velvet Underground.   Both Lee and Reed can write and sing something that sounds simple, but then there's the complexity in what we think is simple.   It's that juxtaposition of sweetness and hardness in their music that keeps me listening to this record.  The other thing I want to note is that I strongly suggest listening to the Mono version of "Love."  The stereo mix or format doesn't work for me, with regards to this album.   The music here needs to be confined in a space that comes from one direction. 

Love - "Four Sail" Album, Vinyl, LP, 1969 (Elektra)

The fourth and last album for Elektra Records, Love narrows down in the arrangements with all new members, except for Arthur Lee of course.   As a producer, I feel he needed someone else to expand on the sounds.  The album is very two guitars, bass, and drums.  What makes it unusual is Lee's brilliant singing as well as his superb songwriting.  I've been avoiding "Four Sail" (the punning title is bad enough) due that I loved the first three Love albums, and I can't imagine an album without the original band.   Now listening to it, I do miss the guys in Love Mark one.  Still, songs like "Always See Your Face" is a classic Arthur Lee song/performance.  His sense of rhythm with a remembrance of the samba or traces of jazz overtures, he's a writer to me that is very close to Burt Bachrach.  I don't think it was an accident that Love recorded his "My Little Red Book," and that there is an aesthetic connection between the two songwriters. 

Song wise not that different from the early Love.  Lee's songs are hard to pin down, and they're highly sophisticated works.  A unique artist, who sounds like no one else. "Four Sail" is not my favorite Love album, but then again, just because it's Arthur Lee, it is a fantastic album in parts.  If he had full orchestration on this album, and recorded by someone who is more into textures of sound, this could have been another masterpiece by Love.  

Arthur Lee & The American Four/ Arthur Lee & The Grass Roots - Unissued 1965 Demos 45rpm single

Arthur Lee & The American Four/ Arthur Lee & The Grass Roots - Unissued 1965 Demos

Vinyl 7” 45 RPM, Single, U.S., 2006

Norton Records

These very early demos by Arthur Lee and Love before they were Love, shows that he always had that “it” quality.   “Stay Away” is him and The American Four doing that garage rock thing that doesn’t really himt towards the classic Love sound.  But his voice is there, and it is fascinating to hear the raw Arthur, but then again I don’t think he was ever raw.   On one level it reminds me of  The Stooges “Shake Appeal” with the hypnotic hand-clapping which does give the recording a sense of urgency.

The b-side is  Arthur Lee and the Grass Roots, performing “You’ll Be Following” which is actually a Love song from their first album.  Different lyrics, perhaps “Signed DC?”  The lyrics are fascinating because it is a day in the life of Arthur with his band - of sorts.   His death was a real lost to music in my opinion.  He had that incredible mixture of styles that is only him.  He was an one-of-a-kind cocktail.