Love - On Love and Other Psychedelic Demons

If cats have nine lives, then Arthur Lee had eighteen.
(Harvey Kubernik)

Very few Black artists have been able to create a white sound and ride it all the way to success. One was Chuck Berry; then Jimi Hendrix and certainly Arthur Lee.
(Allan Talbert)

"When I started, I wanted to be like Elvis Presley, the Beatles or James Brown. As I grew up, I discovered that people were more interested in the music and in my words, so I started focusing more on what I was doing. My journey, when I started out, involved different kinds of music, and I didn't want to be categorized and labeled. I wanted to fulfill my dream of playing every kind of music. I satisfied that pretty well, going from punk-rock and folk-rock to rock; from rock to classical; from classical to jazz. All my albums are different from each other.
(Arthur Lee)

Intro – The time and the life I'm living

January 15, 2003. The Royal Festival Hall is a concert venue opened in the early 1950s in modernist style, with nearly three thousand seats at the heart of the Southbank Centre, on the south bank of the River Thames. For days, London has been charged with electric anticipation, awaiting the stage return of the man born Arthur Taylor Porter, known to the world as Arthur Lee. From the trade press to the famous fanzine The Castle, and even some honorable members of the British Parliament. Until the end of 2001, when he was released after more than five years in prison, the leader of Love received tons of messages of solidarity from those who had kept flying the freak flag of his unconventional art. Now London audiences can savor his triumphant live return with the long-awaited performance of the entire Forever Changes, the 1967 masterpiece, the seminal album of the Summer of Love. Backed by an ensemble of strings and horns, Lee presents himself to the world again after the most absurd urban legends circulated over the years. There was talk of brain-frying acid trips; of the murder of a roadie over a drug deal; of a theft at a doughnut shop in Los Angeles. The classic rock'n'roll myths that seem designed to fill in the gaps when verified information is lacking. Unlike Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin, Arthur Lee is a survivor, now back on the scene after all the drugs, the prison time, the excesses of a reckless life. Sentenced to a heavy twelve-year term at the Pleasant Valley State Penitentiary in Coalinga, California, under the so-called three strikes law, for illegal possession of firearms. After pleading out to avoid further court proceedings, Arthur was released in December 2001, asking himself: "Will the music world still remember me?"
And how. Perhaps precisely because of his imprisonment, the music world is ready to hear Lee's voice again, which has in the meantime grown darker and more rasping. A 26-date European tour needs to be prepared, starting in Odense, Denmark, after working through the material of Forever Changes with classical arranger Gunnar Norden. His return to the stage is engineered by Swedish-born music promoter Gene Kraut, a die-hard Love fan for years. He's the one who decides to go all-in on Arthur, putting him at the helm of several new musicians who have to learn the album's songs by ear, since all the original sheet music has long since vanished. In truth, Arthur Lee has no desire whatsoever to dust off material from the 1960s; he'd rather do something different for his comeback. But friends and industry insiders insist, because Forever Changes is perhaps the album that, more than any other released in the late 60s, has traveled through time and space, speaking to generation after generation. And above all, it's an album that absolutely needs to find its audience, having gone almost unnoticed commercially in a year so rich with genius. "I'm not playing that shit anymore," Lee himself once told the many fans who begged him for at least one song live.
Wonder and curse at once, Forever Changes will now come back to light exactly as it was originally conceived and recorded, almost a new sonic baptism for the man who walked out of prison after nearly six years. What's more, it's happening on one of the longest tours in his band's history, one whose popularity was likely hurt by the lider maximo's near-total aversion to stage exposure. But Arthur Lee is a different man today, burned out by his own excess, and he's pondering the chance to give back, to three generations of fans, all the love and support he received during the darkest times.

London, then, is the perfect city for Love's return, where even the homeless recognize Lee as he walks down the street. Before taking the stage at the Royal Festival Hall on January 15, 2003, his band, Baby Lemonade, can feel the nervousness thick enough to cut with a knife, even after six months of studio rehearsals. But it all melts away the moment Lee appears onstage, greeted by a standing ovation lasting about five minutes. When the opening arpeggio of "Alone Again Or" kicks in, many in the audience can't hold back tears, overwhelmed by the dream of an album they'd never heard performed live in their lives. A girl stands up and shouts: "Arthur, you have no idea how long we've been waiting for this." Towering under his cowboy hat, Lee replies: "But you know exactly how long I've been waiting." By the end of the London show, a sense of triumphant euphoria washes over Arthur Taylor Porter, a survivor of life itself, now blessed by whatever divine force granted him a second chance.

Chapter 1 – Famous as Wilson Pickett

Agnes Porter was born into a large family, with brothers and sisters. She is the daughter of Ed Porter, a white man from Memphis, Tennessee, and Malvise (Mal) Porter, an African-American woman. A passionate student, Agnes graduated from Manassas High School before enrolling at LeMoyne College and then at Tennessee State, in Nashville. Back in Memphis to teach, she met and married Black jazz musician Chester A. Taylor, a dedicated cornet player, and moved to the neighborhood known as New Chicago to start a family. Within the walls of John Gaston Hospital, on March 7, 1945, the couple's first and only child was born: Arthur Porter Taylor.
Little Arthur quickly began to feel lonely as an only child, unsettled by his own skin, which was "too light to make me feel Black, too dark to be white." That kind of complexion confused "respectable" people and only bred suspicion, constant wariness toward anything seen as unconventional. At 1361 North Bellevue Boulevard, it was Aunt Vera who looked after Arthur, smoking cigarettes on the patio while listening to jazz and blues radio stations. A free spirit, Vera shaped her young nephew's musical passion through the gospel sounds from the nearby Baptist Church, along with the echo of rehearsals from the Manassas High School Band. Arthur grew drawn to the blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, picking up the cornet his father used while singing in the shower. A woman of strong manners, Agnes taught her son the power of prayer, repeatedly threatening him whenever he acted recklessly. While Chester grew utterly disinterested – the couple separated in the early 1950s – Arthur formed a strong bond with his mother, who took full custody of her son as well as the house in Bellevue.

After separating from Chester, Agnes met building contractor Clinton Lee, who in recent years had managed to amass a small fortune thanks to new apartments on Wilshire Boulevard. Clinton promised the world to Agnes and her son, though it's unclear why the woman decided to move alone to Los Angeles in 1952, before marrying Clinton himself in 1955. Agnes thus became Agnes Taylor Lee, while – once adoption approval was granted – Arthur Taylor Porter became Arthur Taylor Lee. With two well-paying jobs between them, Agnes and Clinton bought a house at 3215 West 27th Street, in the West Adams area bordering the Baldwin Hills neighborhood, well populated by the white, largely Jewish middle class. Past the age of ten, Arthur – or Po, to friends and family – showed strong athletic talent and a sharp love of reading, but studying was out of the question, much to Agnes's despair. At Sixth Avenue Elementary School, Arthur was a genuine little bully, feared by everyone and constantly placed on the worst sports teams depending on how he performed on homework and classroom exercises.
The boy grew up full of inner contradictions, aggressive toward classmates on one hand, gentle and devoted to animals – especially dogs and birds – on the other. At first he considered a career as a boxer, drawn in by the exploits of Sugar Ray Robinson, who, among other things, lived just a few blocks from his house. Between the ages of twelve and thirteen he began practicing target shooting in the quiet of Lake Arrowhead, where he briefly attended the local Boy Scouts. It's during this period that Arthur befriended a boy two years younger than him, John Marshall Echols, who had moved to the same neighborhood from Memphis. Agnes knew John's mother, which helped bring the two boys together, both passionate about sports and music. Now enrolled at Mount Vernon Junior High, Arthur grew increasingly captivated by the new American sounds, hanging around a local quintet called The Valaquons. Together with his new friend Johnny, he went to see a Jimmy Reed concert, even running into Wilson Pickett in the crowd. "One day I'll be as famous as him, I have no doubt about that," he told Echols.

The first musical instrument Arthur decided to practice was, oddly enough, the accordion, decidedly one of the least cool choices of the late 50s and early 60s. Taking lessons around the neighborhood, young Lee learned to read music, working mostly by ear since he had no theoretical background. Soon after, he started tinkering with the organ and then the harmonica, managing to replicate the sound of his favorite artists. The Lee household thus became a sort of public space where many friends would come over to listen to records, while Arthur entertained them with vocal experiments in the style of Ray Charles or Frank Sinatra. His bond with Johnny grew ever stronger, pulled along by music. Echols had started building himself an acoustic guitar, which eventually led his exasperated father to buy him a brand-new one. There was great excitement around Susan Miller Dorsey High School, near the Baldwin Village neighborhood, where idol Little Richard had retired to live. From rock'n'roll to jazz, many different styles electrified the area, striking a spark in the hearts of Arthur and Johnny: their future would be music, and only music. Lee was in fact won over after watching Echols himself perform "Johnny B. Goode" together with his friend Crimson Crout, which put to rest any thought of a career as a professional athlete. Arthur realized deep down that he had a talent for singing and songwriting, and decided to join Echols and Crout's quintet to perform on organ at a few school shows. The path was now set, and Arthur Lee was convinced: he would become a star, as famous as Wilson Pickett.

Chapter 2 – Struck by the Byrds

The quintet's first shows at Dorsey High School, with Lee and Echols on board, sparked real excitement among the teenagers, prompting the group to settle on an actual name: Arthur Lee And The LAGs. The newly formed band played at a nearby golf country club near Pico Boulevard, and began rehearsing regularly at Arthur's apartment. Still stung by the failure of her first marriage, Agnes was skeptical about the direction her son was taking, but chose not to stand in his way.
At seventeen, Arthur Lee devoured tons of blues and R&B records, studying poses and styles to feed into his group. With the backing of a Hollywood agent, the LAGs broke into the local nightclub circuit, from Nite Life to the California Club, playing various parties around the Beverly Hills area. While surf-music fever raged, Arthur met Adam Ross and Jack Levy, publishers at Ardmore Beechwood Music, and convinced them to listen to some of his songs. Ross and Levy were easily won over, and the quintet went on to record for the first time at Gold Star Studios, famous for the work of Phil Spector.
The first single produced was "The Ninth Wave," opening with a tribal drumbeat that unfolds into a smooth but predictable R&B groove. The B-side chosen was "Rumble-Still-Skins," a short instrumental with warmer, more exotic tones. Lee himself would later call them "horrendous songs," recorded for money and handed over as "minor" tracks so as not to give Ardmore the best of his catalog. With no manager, Arthur didn't trust Ross and Levy, even though they were tied to a major label, Capitol Records.
The single "The Ninth Wave" flopped miserably, but that didn't stop Arthur Lee at all – quite the opposite, he dropped out of school for good to throw himself fully into the music business. The epiphany came with the Beatles' appearance on the famous TV program The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 9, 1964. The Liverpool band led the so-called British invasion, which effectively pushed R&B to a new level, breaking down the divide between white music and Black music. Johnny Echols told Arthur about the concert at The Hollywood Bowl in August 1964, after miraculously getting hold of a couple of tickets thanks to his friend Billy Preston, who had already met Lennon and company in London. The English influence was enormous, leading Lee to decide to disband the LAGs and form a new group, The American Four, with Echols on guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass, and John Jacobson on drums. It was essentially one of the first interracial bands in the area, made up of two white and two Black musicians with long hair and a restless urge to take on the world. It's at this point that Arthur asked Johnny if he could play his guitar instead of the organ, now considered far too uncool after the arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The American Four played virtually every possible hit live, booked onto the circuit by the Beverly Bowl agency.
The lineup saw drummer John Jacobson replaced by a local legend, Don Conka, who took part in the recording sessions for the first single, "Luci Baines." Heavily inspired stylistically by the Beatles' hit version of "Twist & Shout," the single came out on the Selma label (DelFi Records) in mid-1964, sung by Arthur, who also wrote the lyrics about the real Luci Baines, the teenage daughter of President Lyndon Johnson. The B-side of the single features one of the first compositions by the Lee-Echols songwriting duo, with Lee leading on organ in an arrangement similar to Booker T. & The MG's "Green Onions," another group much loved by Arthur.

The second single flopped just as badly, hit hard by a radical shift in the LA sound, driven by the Byrds, who merged a folk approach with the British-beat sound, thanks to the ringing jingle-jangle of Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker. The Byrds upended the American scene with their electrified version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" (Bob Dylan), proving that music could be made not just to dance to, but above all to reflect on. When they played at Ciro's, on the Sunset Strip, the Byrds drew in a new generation of beatniks, suddenly putting dozens of soul and danceable R&B acts out to pasture. In June 1965, the single "Mr. Tambourine Man" hit number one on Columbia, shaking the minds of countless American artists. Among them was Arthur Lee, who hadn't yet recorded a single so-called folk-rock record, even though he'd already written several songs pointed in exactly that direction. It was the spark that set off his final decision: the ticket to success ran straight through that exact sound.

Chapter 3 – Enter Bryan

By 1965, the center of gravity of the American music scene had firmly shifted from the East Coast to the West Coast. While New York still held onto the major labels and the leading booking agencies, a new wind of creativity and artistic drive was blowing in from Southern California. The sound of the Byrds was essentially the sound of the Golden State itself, with McGuinn's band effectively inventing folk-rock. The Strip was of course the beating heart of the whole movement, with several venues – from Ciro's to the Whisky A Go Go – diving headfirst into the genre that transformed the acoustic format born in Greenwich Village. Arthur Lee struck up a friendship with Elmer Valentine, the former cop who had opened the Whisky A Go Go in 1964, and got his band booked as an opening act for bands like The Doors and Buffalo Springfield. Inspired by Gene Clark's songwriting, Lee sharpened his own compositions with a more abstract edge, testing the new sound live with the American Four, now the house band at the former gay bar Brave New World.

In the spring, the four decided to change their name, settling on The Grass Roots, taken from a Malcolm X record, moving further and further away from their R&B sound. Since Arthur still couldn't play rhythm guitar smoothly, the group temporarily hired Bobby "Bummer Bob" Beausoleil, later known for taking part in the murder of Gary Hinman carried out by Charles Manson's Family. After one of their many shows, Arthur and Johnny met an attractive guy dressed like a surfer, raised in the wealthy neighborhood of Beverly Hills and briefly a roadie for the Byrds. Born in September 1946, Bryan MacLean had a longstanding love of opera, having grown up alongside the likes of Liza Minnelli and composer Fritz Loewe. MacLean, however, couldn't read music, and had drifted toward more "accessible" genres like blues and jazz. Lacking a solid father figure, Bryan had struggled with various behavioral issues, eventually coming to understand he suffered from bipolar disorder. By the time he met Lee and Echols at the late-night diner Ben Frank's, MacLean already had years of guitar playing behind him, having thrown himself headlong into folk music. A regular at the Balladeer – where David Crosby, Gene Clark and McGuinn were also often spotted – MacLean had nonetheless always preferred weed to a career as a musician, after dropping out of high school at 17. Initially running around with Taj Mahal, he became a roadie for the Byrds during their Midwest tour in the summer of 1965. It was a very short-lived gig, since America's most famous band soon decided to leave him behind before heading off to the UK.

With his heart broken, Bryan MacLean tried in vain to join the Monkees, until he crossed paths with Arthur and Johnny. The two were intrigued by his flamboyant look, and fully won over after hearing him play a few songs at the diner. The Grass Roots already had Bummer Bob on rhythm guitar, but they decided to go all-in on Bryan, who was certainly an arrogant character, but extremely charismatic and, above all, well known and followed in the LA scene. When he performed for the first time with the Grass Roots at the Brave New World, the groupies flocked in droves, along with new teenage fans who helped the band's reputation grow. The moment then came to get truly serious, as MacLean rented a loft south of Laurel Canyon, inviting Lee and Echols to move in and rehearse more intensively. Several new songs were tried out at the home of Buck Ram, manager of the Platters, whom Bryan himself had enlisted to land the Grass Roots their first record deal. Excitement for the band grew along the Strip, while the Brave New World filled beyond capacity, with hundreds of cars parked haphazardly out front. After repeated threats from the police, the owner was forced to kick the group out, by then too famous for a former gay bar. The time came for one more step: changing the band's name yet again, after discovering that songwriters Phil Sloan and Steve Barri had teamed up with record manager Lou Adler (Dunhill Records) with the idea of recording some folk-rock songs under that very same name, The Grass Roots. Arthur found out from a friend who congratulated him on his new single "Mr. Jones," obviously written by Sloan and Barri. Lee was furious, but aware he had no legal claim to the name, which he felt had been shamelessly stolen. By the time the new Grass Roots' second single, "Where Were You When I Needed You," became a hit, there was nothing left to be done. Hunting for a new name for the group, Lee, MacLean and Echols were driving along when they spotted a billboard for a new club called Luv Brassieres. That was the spark: the band certainly wouldn't be called Luv or The Luv – simply, Love.

Chapter 4 – Love

The Grass Roots become Love in the autumn of 1965, relocating to a new folk club called Bido Lito's, near the Ivar Theatre at 1608 Cosmo Alley. Run by the Thompson family, Bido Lito's is a former restaurant recently converted into a venue for young people, holding a cabaret-club license that allows it to serve only food to minors. Love play their first show there in October, giving even those stuck outside near their cars a chance to hear the set. Bido Lito's is in fact a cramped, cavernous space, not unlike the Cavern Club that launched the Beatles into the pop-rock stratosphere. The band manages to pull in up to 25 dollars a night each, a decent sum guaranteed by an ever-growing crowd.
Love deliver an energetic, extremely loud set, opening with a cover of “Smokestack Lightning” (Howlin' Wolf) before veering into long jams straddling beat, rock and jazz, led by Lee on harmonica and vocals while Echols shows off the full beauty of his double-neck guitar. Love's aura is so powerful that it wins over Jac Holzman, boss of Elektra Records, present one night among Bido Lito's eclectic crowd. Holzman offers the band a record deal just as bassist John Fleckenstein decides to leave to pursue a career in film.
Lee scrambles to find a new musician, eventually settling, after several tries, on Kenny Forssi, born in March 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio. Having moved with his family to Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 13, Kenny pursued his passion for fine art, enrolling in 1964 at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. Having become a bass player to make ends meet, Forssi had already lent his instrument to several musicians tied to Capitol Records, and later joined the Surfaris for a tour of the Far East. Back in America, Kenny sensed that surf music was dying, and offered his services to Lee and co. after becoming a regular at Bido Lito's. Love like his more melodic sound, combined with an almost engineering-like approach to playing his Eko bass.

With the bassist role settled, the band now has to deal with the Don Conka problem, as he's often absent without notice due to serious drug issues. A powerful, talented drummer – his endless solos were famous all over Los Angeles – Conka undermines Love's stability with his troubled personality. Needing a replacement during a show, Lee calls on young Michael Stuart, who had come to see Love as a spectator at Bido Lito's. Already a member of the local group The Sons of Adam, Stuart doesn't have Conka's versatility, but he's perfectly capable of holding the groove Arthur wants. While waiting for Don's recovery, Love can count on two drummers, having also added Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer to the line-up. The situation is potentially explosive, since McLean doesn't like Snoopy, while Arthur takes him under his protective wing, with Stuart called in as needed and often caught making mistakes. But the new line-up wins over the fans, drawn by the band's striking stage presence during increasingly fiery live shows all along the Strip.
While the live shows keep coming thick and fast, Arthur Lee is already thinking about the band's next move: going into the studio to record their debut album. The first record deal has been secured by Jac Holzman – it will officially be signed in January 1966 – but Love still lack a manager when Ronnie Haran bursts onto the scene, an aspiring actress who moved to Los Angeles from New York to work in TV. Initially Ronnie is meant to run the band's first fan club, but things change when she meets Arthur Lee, who bluntly asks her to fire promoter Herbie Cohen and take over the band's management herself. Small in stature but with an explosive temperament, Haran continues the work Cohen had started to get Love to sign their one-year contract with Elektra Records, which includes a possible three-year extension at the label's sole discretion. The band will have to deliver a minimum of fourteen sides a year, but above all it will be Arthur Lee who collects the earnings before distributing them to his bandmates. One of the many legends surrounding the frontman has it that Holzman granted a five-thousand-dollar advance to be invested “for the good of the band.” Lee is said to have then bought a brand-new Mercedes, handing out just a hundred dollars each to the others. What matters, though, is that there's now a deal between Love and Elektra Records, signed in the names of Arthur Lee, Johnny “Eckles,” Bryan MacLean and Ken Forssi, while Don “Concha” is merely listed as a member. The hope, in fact, is to see him return in time to record the album, with Snoopy remaining a stand-in, a paid sessionman but never an official member of the band.
In a move remarkably bold for the time, Lee secures full control over the publishing rights to Love's songs, placed under the management of Grass Roots Music. Various legal issues will surface later, but for now there's tremendous excitement: on January 24, 1966, the band walks through the doors of the Sunset Sound Recorders studio complex in Hollywood, overseen by Holzman alongside his trusted producer Mark Abramson and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. Expectations are sky-high.

Chapter 5 – Signed D.C.

Deeply versed in folk, Jac Holzman has no experience whatsoever with rock bands. To work on Love's first record he initially calls in staff producer Paul Rothchild, already working with The Lovin' Spoonful and The Butterfield Blues Band. But Rothchild has serious issues with drugs and jail time, so he's replaced by Mark Abramson, a producer and filmmaker who has long been tied to Elektra. Holzman's aim is to preserve Love's powerful live versatility, enlisting veteran sound engineer Bruce Botnick, who had worked multiple times at Sunset Sound with classical and orchestral artists.
The recording sessions for Love, due out in March, are completed in just four days, despite Arthur Lee's difficult temperament, as he shows up in the studio constantly strung out on hashish and LSD. Yet the debut album is the product of years spent playing live, rehearsing and re-rehearsing songs steeped in original, poetic rhythm'n'blues, later transformed – after the arrival of the Byrds – into electric, folk-rock-inflected harmonies. From the Brave New World to Bido Lito's, the band's live performances have shaped the boundaries of the fourteen tracks promised to Elektra, starting with the garage-rock drive of guitar, bass and drums on their version of “My Little Red Book” (Bacharach/David). The first composition credited to the Lee-Echols songwriting team is “Can't Explain,” driven by a sparkling, Byrds-style jingle-jangle, while the following “A Message To Pretty” follows in Dylan's footsteps, from its deep harmonica intro to its desperate vocal delivery over shimmering sonic architecture.
Dubbed by some observers “the Rolling Stones of folk-rock,” Love deliver an electrifying sound on tracks like “My Flash On You,” which add a beat-group touch thanks to Ken Forssi's imposing bass. The band also proves it can ease off the throttle, as Bryan MacLean leads the sweet psychedelic melody of “Softly To Me,” redefining the typical California sound with Echols' superb jazzy guitar work. While some tracks betray a perhaps overly derivative streak – for instance, “No Matter What You Do,” “You I'll Be Following” and “Gazing” – winding between the new jingle-jangle style and Dylanesque echoes – brief instrumental jams like “Emotions” shine with technical skill and psych flair.
The band has fun with a sped-up, deranged version of the standard “Hey Joe” (Billy Roberts) – Forssi's hammering bass work is once again outstanding – before delivering its brightest gem on the following “Signed D.C.” An anti-drug song written by Lee about drummer Don Conka's struggles, “Signed D.C.” is a magnificent, spectral piece of gospel with off-the-scale intensity, often compared to the Animals' masterpiece cover, “The House Of The Rising Sun.” Beyond the obvious inspiration, the song showcases all of Lee's songwriting qualities, alone with acoustic guitar and harmonica, conjuring genuinely chilling atmospheres. After the dark folk-rock of “Colored Balls Falling,” the other standout on side two is the ethereal, delicate “Mushroom Clouds,” another MacLean composition that departs from the overall tone Lee sets on the rest of the album. It's a very delicate balance between Lee and MacLean, who behave like squabbling brothers, yet still find dazzling moments of synergy, as on the closing section of “And More.”

With recording for Love wrapped up, Elektra pushes for “My Little Red Book,” a cover of a Bacharach song, to be chosen as the lead single. Holzman brings in art director William Harvey for the album cover, which captures five menacing figures amid the wide-open natural spaces of Laurel Canyon. Harvey also designs the red logo with its curved lettering, very much in keeping with the Sixties aesthetic, while Elektra launches a promotional campaign for the record across several music magazines aimed at teenagers. In June, Love reaches number 57 on Billboard's albums chart, while the single “My Little Red Book” peaks at number 52 on the singles chart, the best commercial result the American label has achieved to date. A number of Los Angeles-area radio DJs put the song into heavy rotation, prompting the band to move up from the small Bido Lito's to the far more famous Whisky A Go Go, right in the heart of the Strip. Above all, though, Love start catching the attention of several San Francisco-area venues, chief among them Bill Graham's Fillmore, which books the band to help secure its definitive conquest of the entire West Coast.

Chapter 6 – King of the Strip

Riding the wave of their first success, Love – with the exception of Snoopy – move into a house at 4320 Cedarhurst Circle, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Rancho Los Feliz. It's a 1920s mansion already used on various film sets, rented for around six hundred dollars a month and nicknamed The Castle. The Castle thus becomes the headquarters for the four members' excesses, hosting frequent parties attended by other bands like The Doors and Buffalo Springfield. It's a sort of urban kingdom ruled by sovereign Arthur Lee, who welcomes his subjects amid drugs, booze and groupies. In mid-June, the band makes its first TV appearance, on the popular Dick Clark's American Bandstand, a dream come true for Lee, who has been a huge fan since he was a kid.
A few days later it's back to Sunset Sound, since the iron needs striking while hot: a new single has to be recorded and released as soon as possible. This is how the furious “7 and 7 Is” comes to life, a song that in Arthur Lee's original intentions was meant to unfold as a softer, Bob Dylan-style folk tune. Instead it's recorded in the studio amid feedback and distorted instruments, translating into music a kind of “controlled chaos” that builds to an atomic explosion followed by a blues coda borrowed from Santo & Johnny's “Sleep Walk.” Anticipating punk's fury by about a decade, Love craft an extremely powerful piece of garage rock, driven along by a torrential rhythm section. Curiously, the B-side chosen for the single is the short jug-band romp “No. Fourteen,” cheerfully defusing the revolutionary power of the A-side.
Released in July, the single “7 and 7 Is” reaches number thirty-three on the Billboard national chart, becoming a smash across the entire West Coast. Promoters and booking agents have by now set their sights on the band, among the most innovative on the California scene, but Lee's eccentric personality gets in the way, as he refuses to play venues bigger than the Fillmore or the Hullabaloo. Love remain a band accessible only on the West Coast, playing night after night in the same clubs, flatly refusing to embark on their first US tour. This is a problem for Elektra, since the normal logic of the music business always calls for a tour to support an album, in order to expand regional markets at home. But Arthur Lee has no intention of wasting months travelling around in uncomfortable buses and cheap motels, embracing that necessary evil every band chasing national success has to endure. After all, why end up near the bottom of the bill in unfamiliar cities when, between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Love are undisputed headliners?

Lee particularly loves staying home at The Castle, surrounded by exotic birds, dogs and soft drugs. Since no record store outside California has ever even heard of Love, why bother? This is when relations with Elektra start to grow difficult, since Jac Holzman's label has never had experience with a rock band before. Before scoring big with The Doors, the label finds itself caught in a vicious circle: unable to take Love out on the road, it also can't figure out how to promote them outside their home turf. Lee himself will later admit to having been afraid of travelling to unfamiliar places, since an interracial band like Love wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms across the Midwest and the Southern states. The band would be far more willing to tour the more enlightened Europe, but Holzman has no idea how to put together such a trip. Above all, though, there's the frontman's difficult personality, as he always insists that Love remain top of the bill, above bands like the Doors, Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly.

It's the ever-dynamic Ronnie Haran who manages to stir things up, organizing a show in Dallas, Texas, hardly one of the more progressive states in America. Haran discovers that Dallas's airport is also nicknamed Love Field, making it the perfect location for a show by her clients. The publicity machine is set in motion, contacting every radio station in the area along with the various record stores. Love are given a triumphant welcome, with the mayor going so far as to present Lee and co. with the keys to the city. Everyone is thrilled, believing the event will finally convince Lee to tour more around the States, but on the flight back to Los Angeles, as Haran is splitting the earnings among the band members, Bryan MacLean turns to her and says: “Are you taking the same cut I am?” For the young manager it's a blow to the heart, after all her efforts, carried out without even receiving a fixed salary. She starts looking elsewhere, feeling betrayed above all by her friend Bryan, and ends up with a band that Arthur Lee himself had recommended to Elektra, and which – ironically enough – will soon be the cause of a bitter falling-out: the Doors. Both Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison are die-hard fans of Love, admiring their live versatility and the long, fiery jams led by the dark lord Arthur Lee. When Ronnie Haran brings Jac Holzman to see the Doors live at the Whisky A Go Go, Elektra isn't convinced at first, but it only takes a few more shows to get a first contractual approach going, also pushed by Lee himself. For Manzarek and Morrison it's a dream come true: being signed to the same label as Love, the band that reigns supreme over California in 1966. Jac Holzman finds in the Doors a band very different from Love, far more willing to make all the necessary sacrifices to achieve worldwide success. Ronnie Haran becomes the band's manager after the Elektra deal, appreciating a far more democratic setup than the one within Love, which is essentially run by Arthur Lee's word alone.

Chapter 7 – Da Capo

In November 1966, Elektra Records releases Da Capo on the US market, Love's second album, coming just a few months after their self-titled debut. In musical terminology, the term “da capo” instructs the performer to repeat the same instrumental line from the beginning. On the surface, the new title chosen by Arthur Lee evokes a notion of sonic repetition, given how little time has passed between one album and the next. In agreement with his trusted partner Johnny Echols, Lee wants to return to the days of The Grass Roots, before Hollywood, when the guiding star was a sound in the vein of Booker T. and the M.G.'s. In reality, Da Capo pushes Love light years ahead, giving full rein to what the members themselves call “free music,” or – if a label is needed – an effervescent mix of jazz and rock. Finally available to produce the record is Paul Rothchild, now out of jail and already at work on the Doors' debut album.
Recording sessions begin at RCA's Hollywood Studios, at 6363 Sunset Boulevard, with sound engineer Dave Hassinger. The new producer is able to stand his ground with Arthur Lee, respected by the whole band for his troubled legal past. A perfectionist and a stickler for rules, Rothchild makes the Love machine run like a Swiss watch, humoring Lee's request to get a sound in the style of the Rolling Stones, drawing on Hassinger's experience having worked on the single “Satisfaction.” On top of that, Arthur has a specific shift in direction in mind, toward more jazz-oriented atmospheres, so he decides to sideline Snoopy and bring in Michael Stuart, whom he'd already approached back at Bido Lito's when Stuart was in the Sons of Adam. Stuart isn't entirely convinced, however, partly because of the heavy drug use among Love's members, and partly because of the new musical approach, which he considers decidedly uncommercial.

While Snoopy is temporarily shifted to keyboards, Lee brings in yet another member for the band, saxophonist and flutist Tjay Cantrelli – real name John Barbieri – an expert in free-form jazz. With the line-up thus transformed, Arthur storms menacingly into Elektra's offices, demanding that the label tear up the band's contract over its poor commitment to promoting the group. But the label has no intention of backing down from its legal terms, which call for three more albums to be delivered. Reluctantly, Love release Da Capo, still with Jac Holzman, demonstrating to the entire California music scene an impressive artistic maturity.
The harpsichord waltz that opens “Stephanie Knows Who” is a manifesto of this new direction, broadening the scope of shouted R&B with futuristic free-jazz interludes. The sudden shift in rhythm, switching from 3/4 to 5/8 with disarming ease, is the band's signature, showing their eagerness to surprise listeners beyond the classic tropes of rock'n'roll. While still largely sticking to a short-song format, Da Capo embraces psychedelia while transforming it, as on “Orange Skies,” a Bryan MacLean masterpiece. A melancholy meditation on falling in love, the song centers around Cantrelli's flute, expanding into a latin-jazz structure years ahead of the Seventies-style MOR to come. Lee dares to go even further on the dazzling “¡Que Vida!,” adopting an unusually honeyed vocal tone over a small orchestra of bells, carousel-like flourishes enriching a summery jazz-pop foundation. It's a surprising direction when set against the following hard-garage-punk fury of “7 and 7 Is,” already previewed as a single on the California market. While Johnny Echols' talent reigns supreme on “The Castle” – his guitar tone shifting from an initially country feel into an acid-soaked flamenco – Arthur Lee's talent colors the baroque pop of “She Comes In Colors,” which unfolds between funk lines and horns worthy of a modern fairy tale.
The Viennese-style psychedelic organ closes out the more melodic side of Lee's songwriting, before the incendiary finale entrusted to the nearly twenty minutes of “Revelation.” The suite takes up the entire B-side of the record, opening with a frantic harpsichord before launching into syncopated R&B led by harmonica, amid free jams over raga-boogie rhythms and lascivious vocal gargles. “Revelation” is the masterpiece within the masterpiece, the offspring of the torrential jams the band had tested live ever since their days at the Brave New World, when they showed off all their instrumental prowess on covers like “Smokestack Lightning” and “Gloria.” The suite's circular ending, inspired by a Bach fugue for harpsichord, is handled by Botnick to bring it down to just under nineteen minutes, given that the original forty-five-minute version was impossible to replicate on record.

When it hits the US market, Da Capo leaves fans and industry insiders alike confused, having completely overturned the sound of the debut album in just a few months. “Revelation” only gets heavy rotation on late-night radio shows, adored by DJs for its length, giving them a perfect excuse to step away from the booth. The album stalls disappointingly at number eighty on the Billboard chart, while the single “She Comes In Colors”/“Orange Skies” doesn't even crack the Hot 100. Arthur Lee is furious with Elektra over the poor result, and of course Elektra puts the blame on Lee and his constant refusal to go on promotional tours. The truth is that the frontman's visionary ambitions for Love far outstrip the tastes of his own audience, still attached to the beat-group rhythms of the debut album. Yet the band's reputation on stage remains absolutely intact, despite the sudden shift in sound from Byrds-style folk-rock to an avant-garde patchwork. The addition of Tjay Cantrelli's horns rattles audiences and sets critics alight, with the Los Angeles Times admitting it couldn't recall such a perfectly balanced interplay of instruments and roles within a single band. People start talking about jazz-rock, as if “John Coltrane were playing insistently,” putting Love on the lips of every music critic on the West Coast.

In early December the band plays three consecutive nights at the Fillmore in San Francisco, before returning to Los Angeles as headliners at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, alongside the Turtles and Gene Clark, making his solo appearances after leaving the Byrds. The show, however, is halted by an electrical fault, sparking Lee's fury as he decides to walk off stage and not return even after the technical issues are fixed. It's a difficult time for the Los Angeles nightlife scene, hampered by a strict curfew imposed by local police on all minors, starting at 10 p.m. California teenagers stage a revolt, clashing with police officers outside the Pandora's Box coffee house, right in the heart of Sunset Boulevard. The crackdown grows harsher still, targeting every venue along the Strip. Protests escalate and more than three hundred arrests are made, inspiring Stephen Stills to write the rebellious anthem “For What It's Worth.” The temporary closure of the most famous live clubs prompts Elektra to push once again for Love to tour other states, with Jac Holzman physically bringing Lee to New York to show him the thriving scene on the East Coast. Several interviews are arranged, but Arthur doesn't show up, quickly informing Holzman that he'll be heading back home very soon. Not even the firm hand of Mike Gruber, the band's new manager after Haran's departure, can do anything about it: Love are not, and never will be, a touring band.

Chapter 8 – Staking Out a Position

With no live dates and no commercial revenue coming in from the two records, Arthur Lee decides to go back to a five-piece lineup, cutting Snoopy and Cantrelli loose at the end of 1966. The leader's plan is to soon set aside the jazz-rock of Da Capo in favor of more orchestral arrangements. Lee's choice doesn't go down well with critics, particularly the Los Angeles Times, which pans the band's performance at the Pasadena Rock-Folk Festival. When Elektra releases the Doors' self-titled debut album, complete with a massive billboard on the Strip, Arthur Lee is furious, once again blaming Holzman for favoring Morrison's group. But the Doors truly are far hungrier than Love, propelled by the single "Light My Fire," which hits No. 1 on the Billboard chart in June 1967.
There's another key difference between the two bands, though: while Manzarek and company are able to manage Morrison's behavior, Lee's dictatorship reigns unchallenged, with no right of appeal. Even Arthur's girlfriend, Gaye Blair, tries to get through to him, pointing out Morrison's live success. But Lee won't budge: he doesn't want to tour around America, nor fly, nor leave the comforts of home for long.

Early 1967. The escalating conflict in Vietnam looms over every American adult, at risk of being drafted without a deferment certificate. The specter of war partly spoils the enthusiasm of the so-called Summer of Love, which is, among other things, marked by a widespread anti-war sentiment. The government's dreaded lottery system is especially frightening for Black adults, "oddly" selected in greater numbers than white men. Indeed, both Echols and Lee are called up for training, but manage to dodge it by pretending to be unfit for service and strongly homosexual.
The protests against the Vietnam War make the demonstrations against the curfew in Los Angeles look like a joke, pushing Lee's pen toward new creative ideas. Arthur's mind is now focused on the dark side of American society, caught between the flower children's free love and Lyndon Baines Johnson's social crackdown.

Among the most important albums of the entire decade, Forever Changes (1967) is born as if it were a final statement, a supreme effort in a world with no hope left. Lee reflects on his own life, on friendships, on the very meaning of the society he's living in. It's the record where the rift within Love becomes most evident, particularly between the overbearing personalities of Arthur and Bryan, while the band's general consumption of LSD and marijuana dangerously shifts toward harder drugs. After sporadic spring performances — from the First Annual Love Circus to six consecutive nights at the small but beloved Bido Lito's — Love start working on the first material written by Lee, who for once thanks Holzman after his suggestion to bring in a more acoustic sound compared to the atomic fury of "7 And 7 Is." The time comes to bring the new songs to Sunset Sound Recorders, with Bruce Botnick stepping up as producer.
The recording sessions for Forever Changes are undermined by a fresh legal clash between Lee and Elektra, which once again calls in its lawyers to force the band to deliver a third album. A more favorable deal is eventually struck for Love, who are indeed obligated to record 12 more tracks, but will be able to terminate the contract if the label fails to release and promote the new studio work within four months. With Michael Stuart now included, the group signs the new deal, whose second clause guarantees them the right to pocket any savings from the $25,000 budgeted for the whole recording project. Wanting to pursue new string and horn arrangements, Botnick suggests Lee bring in young composer David Angel, already at work in Hollywood on scores for TV shows like "Bonanza" and "Lassie." Angel has never heard of Love — his career has been in classical or, at most, jazz arranging — but enthusiastically agrees to work on the record, even though Lee is already ready to tell him exactly what to do. David himself would later say he gave Lee free rein as "chief arranger," fueling the later myth that Forever Changes was conceived, written and entirely played by Arthur alone. But the new Love album is undoubtedly something extraordinary in how it upends the usual practice of orchestral rock albums, where symphonic parts are typically added later during overdubbing. Lee's disruptive genius demands that the band play right inside the orchestra, as if to form a single sonic body.
Originally conceived as a double album, Forever Changes is Love's "Pet Sounds," dominated by Arthur Lee's new psychedelic ideas. This is where the leader stages his scene, growing ever more exasperated with his own bandmates. Making the record is essentially a race against time — clause two of the Elektra contract — leading to an extreme decision: bringing in additional musicians to replace Echols and company. "They were playing wrong chords, they were constantly on drugs, they weren't focused on what we were doing," Lee would later say. The so-called Wrecking Crew is thus brutally brought in, a group of session players featuring Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye on bass, Billy Strange on lead guitar and Don Randi on keyboards. The choice seems odd, since the Wrecking Crew, well-regarded Los Angeles-area musicians, cost far more than Love themselves, blowing any hope of saving money. It's clear Lee wants to send the others a loud and clear message, practically replacing them altogether on three songs in progress.
But precious gems are often born from chaos: Forever Changes is Love's most airy record, opening with the graceful acoustic watercolor of "Alone Again Or" (MacLean), halfway between Prokofiev-style arrangements and Spanish-tinged horns. In the psychedelic ups and downs of "A House Is Not A Motel," Lee's dark, brutal songwriting about the Vietnam War comes into play, drawing out an extraordinary vocal performance amid folk-rock licks and electric jolts. Among the songs recorded with the Wrecking Crew, "Andmoreagain" veers toward a rhythm halfway between Burt Bacharach and Neil Young, carried by Lee's crooner voice over an intense psychedelic madrigal.
Carol Kaye's throbbing bass drives the groove of "The Daily Planet," another acid gem between bright folk and shadowy country-western textures. "Old Man" is MacLean's second songwriting credit on the record, a tender, hypnotic folk ballad embroidered by Angel's strings, which some say are once again inspired by the Troika movement in Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kijé Suite." While Lee brings his purest Barrett-esque experiments with the mystical harpsichord of "The Red Telephone," the wonderful "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale" opens up a rainbow fusion of jazz-rock, psychedelia and Latin sounds, from mariachi bands to bossa nova. It's a dark sophistication that's utterly groundbreaking in the context of flower-power at the end of the Sixties, the fruit of a remarkable creative state and, above all, a vivid instrumental imagination, as in the dialogue between the baroque arrangement and the bright guitar effects of "Live And Let Live." Love prove capable of crafting melodies of extreme beauty and lightness, from the oddly melancholic pizzicato of "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This" to the proto-progressive symphonic march of "You Set The Scene." In between, all of Arthur Lee's stylistic irreverence drives the schizoid country of "Bummer In The Summer," between Bo Diddley-style rhythms and rap-like visions.
If Da Capo had shown that Love were no mere beat group, Forever Changes launches them into the stratosphere of genius.

Chapter 9 – Disbanded

Even though the deal with Elektra initially called for recording to wrap up by mid-June, production on Forever Changes doesn't finish until September 1967. All things considered, it's a show of affection on Holzman's part toward Arthur Lee, who nonetheless keeps refusing any expansion of the band's live activity. Incredibly, the offer to play the Monterey International Pop Festival, scheduled for June 16-18, is also turned down, even though it's a show right in California's own backyard. One of the most important events in rock history, the festival held at the Monterey Fairgrounds invites Love instead of the Doors, an unmistakable sign of artistic respect. But it's run personally by Lou Adler, who had previously been involved with the Grass Roots, the very group Lee accused of stealing his musical identity — and Lee flatly refuses to play, especially at a non-profit event.
This latest stand comes at a heavy cost, essentially leaving Love in national and international obscurity, with a masterpiece coming out that stays practically in the shadows. Forever Changes is released in November and is a total commercial flop, stalling at No. 154 on the Billboard chart. Things go considerably better in the UK — where it will reach No. 24 the following year — but in the States Love are practically unknown, and not even the single "Alone Again Or" manages to crack the already-expanded Top 100. Holzman probably misjudged the timing of the release, so close to the holidays, but it's clear the band's constant refusal to perform live weighs like a boulder. The record is nonetheless showered with critical praise, with Lee compared to great songwriters like Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
Compliments aside, Arthur Lee's mood at the start of 1968 is barely tolerable, worn down by the general indifference with which the (already small) American audience greeted Forever Changes. Constantly evolving, the psychedelic sound of 1967 is shifting toward a more aggressive approach, with blues making a comeback in a hard & heavy guise. How will Love handle this sonic revolution? Live dates are, of course, extremely scarce: three nights at the new Blue Law Club in Torrance, followed by a return to the Whisky. The setlist is a mix of old and new material, impossible to pull off live given the massive orchestral arrangements of the last record.

In January, another agreement is signed between the band and Elektra, transferring all royalties into Lee's hands, to then be distributed to the other members through his lawyers. By the end of the month Love are back in the studio with new sound engineer John Haeny — the relationship with Botnick having broken down after the arguments over Forever Changes — trying to shake up the national charts with a single more in step with the times. "Your Mind And We Belong Together" drops the orchestral arrangements for a more direct, electric sound, driven by Echols' muscular, obsessive riff and Lee's crooner-style vocal delivery. The song's folk foundation is suddenly accelerated and torn open by an intense hard-blues solo, an unmistakable sign of a shift away from the previous album. Chosen as the single's B-side is "Laughing Stock," which opens with an acoustic refrain over a macabre vocal before exploding into a clattering beat rhythm.
Both songs were meant to be part of a new project titled "Gethsemane," a jab at Elektra, which the band accused of betrayal after promising Forever Changes would be a double album. In reality, the single turns out to be Love's first swan song, with Lee putting a stop to things in early 1968. The band's already-rare shows become even more sporadic, while Arthur enjoys his comfortable home life off the royalties from the new Elektra deal. Echols and the others grumble, forced into inactivity in a Mexican standoff. Everyone wants to keep working except the supreme leader, who refuses to perform live or record new material in the studio. His heroin use starts to climb, while his relationship with MacLean — already badly strained after the decision to release "Alone Again Or" as the lead single from Forever Changes — hits an all-time low.

It's Mike Gruber who opens a crack of light, convincing Lee to embark on a short East Coast tour, starting with two dates at New York's New Generation Club in May. The scheduled Miami Pop Festival date is canceled, though, because Arthur rushes back to Los Angeles for "urgent business matters." In truth, he's grown anxious about his girlfriend Suzanne Hausner, left at home in the company of less-than-trustworthy friends. By now addicted to cocaine, Lee is often gripped by paranoid thoughts: he tells the rest of the band the Miami show is off because Love weren't booked as headliners.
The situation worsens further with the death of new road manager Neil Rappaport, from a fatal heroin overdose. The band is now in freefall, psychologically and physically devastated by heavy drug use. Live shows are kept to a minimum, in Southern California and in Salt Lake City, Utah, in July 1968. No one openly talks about Love being over — Lee simply doesn't want to play or record, while the others are strung out and MacLean starts thinking about a solo record with Elektra, effectively already out of the project.

Chapter 10 – New Love

Love's lineup is in pieces by now. Bryan MacLean, dangerously strung out on heroin, tries to win Elektra over with material left over from the Forever Changes sessions. Holzman's label isn't impressed, pushing him toward New York, where in the 1970s he'll try to record for Capitol. Having come out the other side of hard drugs, Bryan will become dependent on alcohol, before finally leaving the music industry for good in 1979. He'll become a born-again Christian in the 1980s before dying of a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1998.
Michael Stuart starts working with artists like Neil Diamond, before he too abandons the music world and moves to the area around South Lake Tahoe to start a family. In 1971 he'll wage a solo legal battle against Arthur Lee to secure his rightful royalties, winning it with a payout of roughly ten thousand dollars. Far worse is the fate awaiting Ken Forssi and Johnny Echols, arrested by California police for an alleged — never confirmed by either of them — theft at a donut shop. Devastated by heroin, Echols will try to rebuild his life between New York and Arizona, working on and off as a music teacher and occasionally as a session musician. While Johnny eventually manages to clean himself up through sheer willpower, Forssi ends up in the 1970s at the California Rehabilitation Center in Corona, before flatly refusing any of Lee's reunion offers, accusing him of having left him with nothing. He'll die of brain cancer in Tallahassee, Florida, in early 1998.

From the summer of 1968 onward, the story of Love becomes essentially the story of Arthur Lee, who unveils his new lineup to California at a series of shows at the Whisky A Go Go between August and September. The new musicians are recruited at a club known as the Brass Ring on Ventura Boulevard (Sherman Oaks), not exactly the classiest part of town. Lee had caught a show by the Nooney Rickett IV, a rock'n'roll group fronted by singer and actor Nooney Rickett. Arthur already knows bassist Frank Fayad and also tries to win over the band's drummer, George Suranovich. On lead guitar, the chosen one is Jay Donnellan, who Lee likes for his versatility, much like his old, troubled partner Johnny Echols. With the new Love lineup assembled, Lee is now free of any obstacles and can take total control of the band, even becoming its manager in place of Gruber. He has already started writing new material, light years away from the psychedelic, baroque sound of Forever Changes. Now the direction to follow is hard rock, in the style of Jimi Hendrix or Cream, who had risen forcefully to prominence at the end of the Sixties.
The initial deal with Elektra calls for one final album, while Lee starts looking around for a new record contract. The search isn't easy, since Arthur doesn't have a great reputation among label executives and certainly can't point to spectacular sales on his résumé. The only one to show any real interest is the newly formed Blue Thumb, founded by Bob Krasnow (ex-Warner Brothers), who guarantees a contract for the new Love lineup in early 1969. Holzman finds out, being friends with Krasnow, but of course does nothing to stop the handover, convinced he's already gotten the best out of Arthur Lee.

Meanwhile, the new band embarks on a veritable marathon to record the fourth album, Four Sail, tracking plenty of extra material that will be used later on. In his usual nonconformist fashion, Lee decides not to use Elektra's studios, recording instead at his own house, in the garage, with minimal equipment rented from Hollywood's Wally Heider Studios for eight dollars an hour. The goal is a powerful, raw sound to break with the past, recorded without mixing effects or overdubbing in the fall of 1968. The new songs catch off guard the critics who turn up to see the band live at various California shows between the spring and summer of the following year, ahead of the record's official release in August. Even with this new direction, Lee has no intention of changing his touring habits, going so far as to turn down "just one show in New York": the Woodstock festival.
From the very first minutes of listening, Four Sail makes Lee's new sonic intent clear, built on a chiaroscuro mix of jazz improvisation and hard-rock guitars bordering on schizoid. "August" is the track that stuns fans and industry insiders alike, as does the whole album, released in August 1969. The old psychedelic verve is considerably stripped down, with no orchestral parts, as in the following nursery-rhyme-like "Your Friend And Mine – Neil's Song," driven along in march-like fashion over a bright country-blues rhythm. The chemistry Lee finds with his new bandmates is remarkable, as on the exotic jazz-rock of "I'm With You" or on "Good Times," which unleashes a fine Donnellan guitar solo over an obsessive choral finale.
While longtime fans might turn up their noses, Four Sail shows a perhaps unexpected maturity, despite the rough-and-ready recording techniques Lee employed to spite Elektra. Among the best tracks on offer is the psychotic electric ballad "Singing Cowboy," punctuated by Suranovich's frenzied drumming and skillfully torn open by Hendrix-style guitar over Lee's schizoid backing vocals.
The album's second side opens with the smooth country-rock of "Dream," before the Neil Young-style atmospheres of "Robert Montgomery." These are the tracks that show a slight dip into derivativeness, while "Nothing" veers into fine rhythmic technicality between pop, psychedelia and jazz. But Arthur Lee's genius is always lurking around the corner, unleashing the surreal, Zappa-esque "Talking In My Sleep" before closing with a return to the orchestral atmospheres of Forever Changes on "Always See Your Face."

Released in the summer of 1969, Four Sail suffers under the weight of its predecessor, only being reassessed by critics later on. In August, having arrived in Oakland for an outdoor show, the band gets caught up in organizational problems that would have them playing only after Blood, Sweat & Tears. Lee blows up and orders the band back to Los Angeles, sparking a reaction from Jay Donnellan, who wants to go on stage regardless. The next day, when he shows up at the studio, the guitarist finds the door padlocked, before receiving a telegram notifying him he's been let go from Love. He's replaced by Gary Rowles, who has already played with Fayad and Suranovich, initially brought in by Lee just to play a handful of solos to finish off the recording of the follow-up, Out Here, essentially worked on during the same period (and in the same way) as Four Sail. The album comes out in December on the new Blue Thumb label, which also distributes it in the UK through Harvest.
Released as a double album, Out Here is the record of a Lee increasingly torn between old acoustic leanings and aggressive new sounds. The first disc opens with the psychedelic honky-tonk of "I'll Pray For You," followed by the brief country refrain "Abalony." Lee — or Arthurly, as he now bills himself in the credits — rewrites his old gem "Signed D.C." in an electric key, delivering a desperate performance built around voice and harmonica.
While songs like "Listen To My Song" suggest the need to pad out a double album with simple acoustic melodies, the boogie-blues of "I'm Down" rewards the listener with a fine choral performance. Donnellan's guitar wails in wah-wah on the Hendrix-style "Stand Out," followed by the dazed little march "Discharged" and, above all, the long suite "Doggone," which over a full twelve minutes blends a psychedelic waltz with free-jazz improvisation driven by Suranovich's drumming.
The second disc of Out Here opens with the electric folk of "I Still Wonder," before another ten-plus-minute marathon, the psychedelic rock of "Love Is More Than Words Or Better Late Than Never." While "Nice To Be" and "Car Lights On In The Daytime Blues" are more filler born of the marathon sessions in Lee's rented spaces, tracks like "Run To The Top" and "Willow Willow" range gracefully into Beatles-flavored pop-jazz territory. The noisy groove of "Instra-Mental" is effective, contrasting with the melodic close of "Gather 'Round."

Chapter 11 – A False (Re)start

The commercial failure of Four Sail, the last record on Elektra, worries Blue Thumb boss Bob Krasnow ahead of the release of Out Here in the summer of 1969. Krasnow talks Arthur into calling back his old bandmates, in an attempt to generate fresh hype around Love, for a show at the Santa Monica Civic Center. Lee agrees on the condition that MacLean is excluded, while a private plane flies over the city trailing a banner announcing: "LOVE at the Santa Monica Civic tonight."
The reunited band kicks off the show with the iconic "7 & 7 Is," but Echols' guitar work infuriates Lee, who finds it too soft. In truth, Johnny is still struggling with serious addiction issues and is nowhere near the level Lee clearly expects. Blue Thumb has already set up a UK tour for late 1969, but the old bandmates' shape is so poor that Lee decides to stick with the new lineup. Meanwhile, Out Here is another failure, this time due to material that's too rough around the edges, aside from a few excellent moments. It will do considerably better in the UK, where it reaches a miraculous No. 29 thanks to distribution by Harvest.
Finally willing to fly overseas, Lee takes the new Love to perform in London, at the Speakeasy, then Birmingham, before heading to Copenhagen and Stockholm. The spring 1970 tour cements the band's European fanbase, while back in the United States, what following remained has by now completely evaporated.

During the UK visit, Love head into Olympic Studios in the Barnes area, southwest London, to record an extraordinary jam with Jimi Hendrix. New guitarist Gary Rowles is stunned when he sees Hendrix walk through the door of the London studio, summoned by Lee on the strength of a friendship stretching back more than ten years. Jimi has indeed agreed to work on a new Lee track, "The Everlasting First", the first sonic creation for the upcoming album on Blue Thumb.
Sessions for False Start continue in June at Record Plant in Los Angeles, while Krasnow is energized by Hendrix's London cameo, hoping it might push the record up the charts. The album is released in December 1970, opening precisely with Jimi's blazing wah-wah on the single "The Everlasting First", which, dashing Blue Thumb's hopes, fails to chart yet again. The track is, in truth, little more than a brief jam that fades into the pleasant but unremarkable R&B of "Flying". From the classic psychedelic rock of "Gimi A Little Break" — with friend Nooney Rickett, on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, a fixture across nearly the whole record — to the live version of the already-recorded "Stand Out", False Start tells the story of a band at its swansong, torn between still-effective technical skill and a creative well running increasingly dry.
Crushed by his own past and by an inimitable record, Arthur Lee tried to reinvent himself with great fervor and drive, but the syrupy barrelhouse groove of "Keep On Shining" betrays a certain weariness. Fresher is the soul rhythm of the bright "Anytime", while the country–western of "Slick Dick" suddenly swerves into a disorienting funk-rock.
The album closes with the Beatles-esque "Feel Daddy Feel Good" before the cosmic drift of "Ride That Vibration". Despite more than one misstep, False Start draws the attention of industry insiders for Jimi Hendrix's contribution, just months before his tragic death in his sleep on September 18. But Blue Thumb's hopes are tragically dashed, as the record fails to climb higher than number 184 on the American chart.

The commercial failure of False Start, despite featuring a collaboration with an icon who had died only months earlier, leads Krasnow to part ways with Arthur Lee. With no hits to show for it, the Blue Thumb contract is torn up, confirming Elektra's earlier prediction: Love had already given their best. The internal situation within the California band deteriorates further with Suranovich's departure, again over payment issues handled personally by Lee. Don Poncher is brought in to play two dates at the Fillmore East in early December, while guitarist Gary Rowles leaves the group in 1971, worn down by the whims of a frontman increasingly gripped by hallucinations and paranoia.
Lee picks Craig Tarwater for lead guitar, as the band prepares to set off on a new mini-tour across Canada and the United States. Love perform at Cobo Hall in Detroit alongside Stooges and Alice Cooper, then open for Grand Funk Railroad at Milwaukee Arena in front of ten thousand people. Lee, however, flatly refuses to play the songs the crowd is loudly demanding, obviously drawn from the first three albums with the original line-up. Having become a committed vegetarian, Arthur lands a new solo deal with CBS, starting work on new material in the spring of 1971 at the studios on Sunset Boulevard.
The sessions drag on endlessly — a full 13 sessions that go nowhere, forcing the new label's executives to pull the plug in July. Constantly under the influence of drugs, Lee has nothing left to say musically and limits himself to cutting demo versions under the furious gaze of CBS executives. Cocaine and heroin abuse spirals out of control, leading him to nearly kill himself when he leaps off the roof of his house in the grip of acid-fueled hallucinations. The European tour planned for the end of the year is cancelled, replaced by a couple of dates at the comfortable Whiskey A Go Go in January 1972. At the LA venue he is approached by Allan McDougall, head of A&R at A&M Records, a label on a visible rise thanks to artists like Joe Cocker and Humble Pie. McDougall is astonished to learn that the great Arthur Lee has no record deal, and offers him the chance to make a solo album.

With only Poncher on drums, Lee brings in two young East Coast musicians, Charles Karp (guitar) and David Hull (bass), both previously with Buddy Miles and the Band of Gypsys. In the spring of 1972 recording sessions begin for Vindicator, this time very brief, since much of the material had already been tried out during the failed CBS experience. The musicians themselves — credited as Band Aid — are amazed at the speed of the studio work, with Arthur struggling on rhythm guitar due to substance abuse.
Opening with the muscular rock-blues of "Sad Song", Vindicator is clearly inspired by the recent jams with Jimi Hendrix, driven by the brawny guitar work of new recruit Charlie Karp. Tracks like "Love Jumped Through My Window" push aside forever the past so celebrated by fans and critics, finding new energy in no-frills arrangements. From the electric blasts of "Find Somebody" to the Chicago-style sound of "He Said He Said", it's an album that flows nicely, remaining focused despite Lee's condition and the speed at which it was recorded.
The powerful "Every Time I Look Up I'm Down Or White Dog (I Don't Know What That Means!)" veers toward hard rock, while "Everybody's Gotta Live" shines with a pop-soul harmony delivered in a style of old-school grandeur. Aside from overly Hendrix-like experiments such as "You Want Change For Your Re-Run", the record restores Lee's songwriting to top form, for instance in the slowed-down rock'n'roll of "He Knows A Lot Of Good Women (Or Scotty's Song)". The closing track is excellent, built on the driving, dark groove of "Hamburger Breath Stinkfinger", followed by "Busted Feet", a cosmic blues-rock number co-written with Karp.

Chapter 12 – Singing Cowboy

Released in the summer of 1972, Vindicator fails to win much praise from industry critics, who fault it for sounding too close to Hendrix. Jac Holzman also weighs in, declaring he can't understand how A&M could have authorized the album's release. Although Vindicator will later be reassessed, Arthur Lee's new ambitions are undone by his own behavior on stage. He is simply unable to perform, perpetually in the grip of drugs, and he eventually abandons even his latest musicians to drift from club to club like a loose cannon.
In mid-1973 a new opportunity arises, thanks to the independent label Buffalo Records, recently launched by impresario Michael Butler, who had previously produced the musical "Hair". Lee puts together a new band with friend and bassist Robert Rozelle, who in turn brings in guitarist Melvan Whittington and drummer Joe Blocker. The new lineup breaks in at the KROC Concert at the Coliseum, before beginning recording sessions for the new album "Black Beauty" at Wally Heider's studios in Los Angeles, under the guidance of former Elektra man Paul Rothchild. Lee still has tracks to finish from the endless CBS sessions, but the record never sees the light of day because Buffalo Records goes bankrupt after that spring. He has to start from scratch, but help arrives for Arthur from unexpected fans like Eric Clapton and Robert Plant, who put pressure on Robert Stigwood, head of RSO Records. The idea is to place Lee in the capable hands of producer Skip Taylor, already working with Canned Heat and John Lee Hooker. RSO takes the gamble, committing a budget of 100,000 dollars for a new Arthur Lee record, making it clear to him that this is his last chance. Surprised by the amount of money on the table, Lee suggests recording with just ten thousand and splitting the rest, but Stigwood sets him straight, telling him the record will be made with that full budget precisely because it has to be excellent. RSO also intends to put him as a permanent opening act on Eric Clapton's upcoming world tour, confirming its genuine desire to relaunch the frontman's career.

With a budget unlike anything he'd ever had, Arthur Lee decides to reclaim both the Love name and his Black roots, setting aside hard rock alone in favor of a patchwork of the styles that had shaped him since adolescence. Released amid great publicity fanfare in December 1974, Reel To Real features a parade of guest musicians — such as Harvey Mandel of Canned Heat and Howard "Buzz" Feiten II from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band — and above all the return of backing vocals and a horn section. The album's opening is genuinely surprising, with the funky groove of "Time Is Like A River" decked out in wild soul harmonies, immediately followed by the swaying rhythm & blues of "Stop The Music", enriched by a harmonica line over the imposing horn arrangement.
For his comeback Lee turns to the funk of "Who Are You", somewhere between psychedelia and disco music, while "Good Old Fashion Dream" carries a faint gospel-soul flavor. From the skeletal country-blues of "Which Witch Is Which?" to the Delta-style echoes of "With A Little Energy", Reel To Real is an almost vintage record, a drawer full of memories for an artist who has always struggled against general artistic underestimation.
True to his usual nonconformist streak, Lee opens the album's second side with a sped-up rereading of his own "Singing Cowboy", while "Be Thankful For What You Got" is a cover of the recent funk-soul hit by William DeVaughn. Given the budget available, it's surprising to find the lo-fi approach of "You Said You Would", and even more so two reworkings of already-released songs, "Busted Feet" and an acoustic version of the otherwise fine "Everybody's Gotta Live". Perhaps too little for a record announced with such fanfare, one meant to mark the artistic rebirth of Love.

When the Eric Clapton tour kicks off, Arthur Lee is greeted with an ovation from the very first British date. There are a great many dates to play and everything seems set up for success, but at the microphone he declares: "Yes, I'm back. But things aren't that different from how they were. Now I'm just the slave of a new master, Robert Stigwood." The RSO boss can't believe it, after all the money and effort invested. He grabs producer Skip Taylor by the arm and orders him to go backstage immediately: "We'll give you the last payment and you're out, I don't want to see that man again." Taylor is furious with Lee and tells him to apologize, but Arthur simply says, "That's how I feel, I won't call that son of a bitch." It is, in effect, the final nail in the coffin of his career.
From the mid-1970s onward, his live appearances can be counted on one hand, while Lee withdraws into himself at his Los Angeles home, increasingly isolated and awash in drugs. He drifts away from many friends, abandoning any ambition and burning through his modest fortune on narcotics. In 1975 he moves to 14818 Round Valley Drive in Sherman Oaks, a considerably smaller house, after selling his villa on Avenida del Sol to raise quick cash. Three years later he surprises old fans by performing at the Whisky with the beloved and despised Bryan MacLean, but the two shows in October 1978 mark yet another rift between the two, since MacLean goes unpaid and is relegated to a secondary role on stage.

In 1980 Rhino Records attempts to bring Love back onto the record market with the 16-track compilation The Best Of Love, a sincere effort to introduce the band's music to a new generation of listeners. Harold Bronson, co-founder of Rhino Records, is a genuine Love fan, and reaches out to Lee for some quotes to include in the album's liner notes. Arthur speaks publicly again after a long silence, commenting on his own songs and saying he's pleased with Bronson's project. Only to later threaten him legally after the release of Love Live in 1982, claiming he had never granted permission for its release. Bronson, however, has a signed contract in hand, along with an advance payment actually made.

While Arthur Lee's career remains stuck in limbo, young agent David Fairweather tries to relaunch him with a handful of live dates around Los Angeles. No label is willing to sign him after the RSO experience, apart from Harold Bronson's own Rhino Records, which sets aside a bare-bones budget to record Arthur Lee.
The second solo album is released in 1981, with laid-back moments drawing on jazz and funk — "I Do Wonder", "Just Us" and "Happy You" — as well as new reggae directions such as "One And One" and "Mr. Lee", written under the heavy influence of Bob Marley. The record passes completely unnoticed, however, offering nothing in the way of a standout moment.

Chapter 13 – I Fought The Law, The Law Won

Late 1983. After splitting from his girlfriend Diane, Lee is arrested and fined for arson, actually started by a drinking buddy trying to force a mutual friend to open her apartment door. Arthur spends a short time behind bars at the Chino prison, before leaving California to avoid further legal trouble. He returns to his native Memphis, where his mother Agnes has already relocated together with his sister Edwinor Porter. Lee spends a few quiet years there, writing songs under the trees, before heading back to Los Angeles in 1988. But his legal troubles aren't over, since after a concert at the Universal Amphitheatre he is accused by a fan of having stolen her car, apparently rented by Lee's cousin and then vanished without a trace. Neither arrest is covered by the media, sparing him public humiliation, but his name has by now become toxic even to local club owners, further limiting his live appearances.
At the end of 1989, having gotten back together with Diane, Lee decides it's time to put the real Love back together, but Forssi won't even answer his calls, while MacLean has already tried and backed out. The situation borders on desperation, with the great Arthur Lee forced to front a Doors tribute band just to scrape together a few hundred-dollar bills. In 1991 he is thus forced to sell 50% of the publishing rights to his songs to Leiber & Stoller's Trio Music, ensnared by a less-than-honest agent. Around this time he meets Mark Linn and plays him some songs he wrote during his Memphis years. Linn, fairly new to the music business, wants to take him on tour on the East Coast with local musicians eager to work with the great Lee. But above all he wants to get him into the studio for a new album, with help from Frenchman Patrick Mathé, who runs the New Rose label in Paris.

Linn negotiates an unthinkable forty-thousand-dollar deal with Mathé, which Lee immediately spends on a new car, as well as fresh personal supplies of drugs. The record promised to New Rose is recorded on a very tight budget and released in April 1992 only in the French market, since offers for US distribution are judged derisory. Arthur Lee And Love opens with the new ballad "Five String Serenade", which reveals his more melancholy side, amid pouring-rain effects and minimal arrangements. The album's opening stretch is highly promising, enriched by the bright country-folk groove of "Somebody's Watchin' You", while the following "Twenty On My Way" veers into a circus-flavored punk'n'roll. If "You're The Prettiest Song" softens things too much with orchestral pop, "I Believe In You" is a decidedly forgettable dance number.
The sense is that Arthur Lee is no longer capable of writing a cohesive album, limiting himself to roaming across genres, as in the band-jazz of "Ninety Miles Away" or the old-school sixties beat of "Seventeen". But the New Rose record also includes some of the most compelling compositions of his later period, such as the spectral blues of "Love Saga" or the Hendrix-like "Passing By".

After the record's release, Linn tries to relaunch Lee in Europe with a series of dates supported by the Liverpool quartet Shack. Arthur is thrilled with the young musicians Mark has hired, big Love fans despite being barely in their twenties. This time the tour wraps up without any major hitches, reviving his desire to find a new band in America as well. In April 1993 he performs at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, in a set opened by a very young band founded by guitarists Mike Randle and David Ramsay, Baby Lemonade. Working at a used record store, Moby Disc, the two had teamed up with drummer David "Daddyo" Green and bassist Henry Liu, before meeting Lee's new booking agent, Tom Sweeney. The band is called in as a last-minute replacement for the Troubadour show, and Lee himself invites them to run through some songs together. Arthur decides the four of them are perfect for him, booking them for a first official performance at Raji's in Hollywood on June 2. The show goes off without a hitch, since Baby Lemonade can play his songs extremely well, with the right amount of respect and, crucially, without personal excess. Yet, barely a year later, bassist Henry Liu is forced out after a violent clash with Lee, who calls him a "chinaman" in front of his relatives. He is replaced by Dave Chapple in 1994, ahead of two memorable shows at Tramps in New York followed by a return to the UK, at the Garage in London. It is above all in the UK that Lee's legend has taken full shape, thanks to a new generation of idolizing admirers such as Primal Scream and Oasis.
At the end of 1994 the American independent label Distortion Records gives it another shot, convinced by his newfound notoriety. Under the name Arthur Lee And Love, though actually played by Baby Lemonade, the single "Girl On Fire" is released, a fierce punk'n'roll blast. Backed by the hard-blues rawness of "Midnight Sun", the single passes completely unnoticed, final proof that the music world remained interested only in material from nearly thirty years earlier.

Arthur's life spirals downward with the death of friend and advisor George St. John in October 1994. After the cremation, Lee is handed a box containing a computer and a .44 Magnum with 500 rounds, a dangerous gift given his history with the law. Rather than getting rid of it, Lee keeps the gun, often brandishing it around the house. On the evening of June 10, 1995, Arthur and his new girlfriend Susan are entertaining some New Zealand guests at the apartment on Kester Street, when Lee steps out onto the balcony, gun in hand. A passerby spots him and calls the police, who arrive in a flash and arrest Arthur for illegal possession of a firearm. Doug Thomas, a businessman in the electronics field who was at Lee's home that night of June 10, will try every way he can to clear him of the charges during the trial, claiming it was he who fired the shot from the balcony. But something feels off, since Lee is hit with a slew of charges, including suspected terrorism, cocaine possession — this charge will later be dropped — and suspected intent to kill police officers. He is released on 50,000 dollars bail, before appearing before Judge Michael Hoff in June of the following year. He is deemed dangerous enough that, remarkably, he is still allowed to fly overseas for a nine-date tour kicking off in Odense, Denmark, in May 1996.

Shortly before the European tour, Rhino Records releases Love Story, a lavish double-album compilation drawn from the Elektra years. The compilation sells very well, prompting the label to organize a launch event at the Coconut Teazser in Los Angeles, but Lee fails to show up even as Baby Lemonade are already on stage. Arthur hasn't said a word about his legal troubles, keeping collaborators and musicians completely in the dark. Underestimating the seriousness of the situation, he turns down a plea deal, telling the California court: "Only God is my judge." On June 27, 1996, Arthur Lee is found guilty on three counts and sentenced to 12 years and 4 months in prison.

Capitolo 14 – “I went from the cage to the stage”

After rejecting a plea deal that would have gotten him a year and a half, Arthur Lee ends up sentenced to over twelve years to be served at Pleasant Valley State Penitentiary in Coalinga, California. The tormented frontman is in shock, boiling with rage over a crime he never actually committed, since he hadn't fired the gun himself. Lee blames a racist justice system, pointing out that the tests on his clothes for gunshot residue had come back negative. In his early years behind bars – while David Fairweather organizes an appeal with top-tier legal counsel – Lee shuts everyone out, refusing visits and even his own guitar. He wants to get clean, to free himself from the demons that brought him to this point, an almost redemptive opportunity given his history. He takes the chance to reconnect by letter with old acquaintances, like Jac Holzman and Bryan MacLean. That continues until the painful death of his mother, Agnes, in early 1999, which follows the deaths of both Ken Forssi and MacLean himself. Lee remains in prison until his appeal, set for December 10, 2001, when he's granted bail and released three days later. The lawyers hired by Fairweather had in fact managed to prove misconduct by the prosecution, which had thus denied the defendant a fair trial.

Finally free, Arthur Lee certainly needs a hand getting back on his feet. Gene Kraut, one of the promoters who never stopped believing in him, has long been thinking about a Forever Changes tour, with strings and horns involved. Lee has always resisted the idea of revisiting his old songs, insisting he now has hundreds of new ones in his head. But in the end he realizes it's time to celebrate his past, especially after spending around a hundred thousand dollars on his appeal. So he puts Baby Lemonade back together – who had in the meantime gone back to working at the record shop – to play small California clubs first, then a major European tour billed as Arthur Lee and Love.
Having gotten clean in prison, Arthur now seems like a reborn man, ready to take his life back in hand by relearning by heart the songs of his masterpiece. Across the ocean, Swedish composer and conductor Gunnar Norden is working in Stockholm on the arrangements for Forever Changes, an album in fact never performed live in its entirety. On May 21, 2002, comes the first performance at Södra Teatern, a triumph of applause after so much nervous anticipation. Lee is now welcomed as a legend, hosted and honored even at the British House of Commons, with London mayor Ken Livingstone speaking of the "greatest record ever made."
The Forever Changes tour is by far the longest and most demanding, with two European legs sandwiching a run of US shows. Critics shower it with praise, as does the public, who turn out in droves to finally hear this most beloved album live. The show at the Royal Festival Hall on January 15, 2003 is recorded for a live album on Snapper Records, released later that year. From the tender acoustic chords of "Alone Again Or" to a stunning extended version of "The Red Telephone," Lee leads Baby Lemonade on a journey back through time.

The Forever Changes Concert is a gut punch for every Love fan, a gift from an artist reborn after years of excess. Wearing an American bandana and a cowboy hat, Arthur rediscovers the brilliance in the purest harmonies of songs like "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale" and "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This." The album also offers several interesting bonus tracks that trace the career of Love and Arthur Lee, from the fury of "7 and 7 Is" to the sweetness of "Orange Skies."
During the 2002-2003 tour, Lee also debuts a new single, a love-hate letter to the United States. "My Anthem" sits somewhere between a national anthem and an Irish jig, played onstage with bagpipes. The tour moves from Europe to Australia, before returning to the US in May. There's great anticipation for the show at the prestigious Royce Hall in Los Angeles, but when he takes the stage, Lee looks to be in terrible shape, confused and unsteady. He's taken certain substances mixed with the medication he's forced to take due to early-stage Parkinson's disease: he's visibly disoriented, to the point of not even recognizing his old bandmate Johnny Echols, who's returned to the stage as a special guest on "7 & 7 Is."

After a period of detox from alcohol and drugs, Lee has slipped back into old habits despite clear health problems. In the summer of 2003 he performs at the Glastonbury Festival, a prelude to a new European tour in 2004. While the music press keeps idolizing him as a living legend, his health is by now dire, so much so that several shows have to be cancelled. He later discovers he has a form of leukemia that leaves him increasingly weak, but he keeps performing through the first half of 2005, still in Europe. His decline is tormented, broke and swollen with toxins, as he lashes out at his own musicians for no reason during a show in San Francisco.
Approached by Start Productions for a documentary film – premiered at the 50th London Film Festival in October 2006 – Lee spends the last stretch of his life revisiting the milestones of a defiant career. A second UK tour is meant to kick off that summer, but Arthur fails to show up at the airport, leaving Baby Lemonade to perform without him. The audience is told Lee will join them on later dates, with a partial refund offered for his absence, naturally. Arthur sees it as a coup, breaking definitively with his band. In September he decides to return to Memphis and settle into his mother's now-empty house, while considering hiring a young local band, The Reigning Sound. A few amateur rehearsals are organized under the new name The Memphis Love, with a possible European tour in mind.
But in early 2006 his body weight plummets, and following a severe bout of pneumonia he's admitted to Methodist Hospital. He marries his girlfriend Diane at the end of March, while undergoing aggressive chemotherapy, ahead of an experimental treatment using stem cells from a donor's umbilical cord. Rhino Records provides more than seventy thousand dollars for the extremely costly treatment, while Steve Weitzman of SW Productions handles the rest, organizing a tribute concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York to raise funds. The evening features special guests such as Robert Plant, Ian Hunter and Ryan Adams, alongside old friend and bandmate Johnny Echols. Another show follows at the Whisky A Go Go called "A Labor Of Love," organized by Baby Lemonade on June 28. The money raised won't be enough: Arthur Lee dies on August 3, 2006 at the Methodist hospital in Memphis.

Outro – Black Beauty

After his death, Arthur Lee is celebrated by major newspapers and music magazines, while Forever Changes earns a place in the Grammy Hall of Fame in mid-2008. The following year, Sundazed Music releases Love Lost, which collects a wealth of unreleased material from the sprawling sessions at CBS Studios in the early 1970s. From the vibrant soul-rock of "I Can't Find It" to the schizoid jam "Product Of the Times," the album gives fans back the sessions that drove Columbia executives to fury, exasperated after a staggering thirteen studio dates. Among the unreleased tracks are effective electric blues numbers like "Good & Evil" and "Looking Glass," through to the medley "Trippin' & Slippin'/Ezy Rider," between hard-rock riffing and Hendrix-style flourishes.

In 2012 comes Black Beauty, an album never released during that same turbulent period. Featuring Joe Blocker on drums and Robert Rozelle on bass, it's the record originally planned for Buffalo Records, meant to relaunch Lee's career after Vindicator. Produced by veteran Paul Rothchild, Black Beauty marked a shift toward funk and a broader return to a distinctly roots sound. Opened by the electric blues of "Young & Able (Good & Evil)," the album can now be heard in full, though it remains in part a patchwork effort. It revisits previously released tracks like the Hendrix-indebted "Midnight Sun" and the melodic ballad "Can't Find It," alongside new material such as a version of "Walk Right In," first recorded by Mississippi bluesman Gus Cannon.
The album doesn't add much weight to Lee's legacy, six years after his death. "Skid" is a smooth soul-jazz number, while "Beep Beep" is little more than a reggae-flavored trifle. Better are the psychedelic rock of "Lonely Pigs" and the hard-rock charge of "Product Of The Times."

In 2015, Rockbeat releases the massive Coming Through To You: The Live Recordings (1970 – 2004), which gathers a huge amount of live material across four discs. The first covers the 1970s, drawn from various performances in London and New York. It opens with the beat-driven energy of the early days ("My Little Red Book") before moving into Hendrix-style blues jams like "Find Somebody." The second disc covers the 1990s, including some acoustic gems recorded for the Richard Skinner Show at the BBC Studios in London. There's the melancholy marvel "Five String Serenade" and the desperate medley "Passing By/Hoochie Coochie Man," as well as a chilling version of "Signed D.C." performed at the Rytmeposten Club in Odense in 1996. The third disc instead covers the best of the 2000s, from the classic "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale" to a cover of the Lennon-penned "Instant Karma."
The final disc is titled "A Fan's View" and collects material recorded across various decades, including a lengthy version of "Singing Cowboy" at Shepherds Bush in London.

Rockbeat's archival work continues two years later, in 2017, with Complete "Forever Changes" Live, which revisits the celebrated Glastonbury Festival show from June 28, 2003.

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