Love

The Love reach their artistic peak in November 1967 with the release of the psychedelic masterpiece “Forever Changes.” The shows that follow, however, see a swift breakdown in the unity of the Californian band, which — due to disputes over the split of earnings and heroin abuse — is disbanded in spring 1968 by leader Arthur Lee.

Right after, he keeps the band's original name and recruits new musicians to accompany him on what will soon become the recording sessions for the next album.

Jay Donnellan (lead electric guitar), George Suranovich (drums) and Frank Fayad (electric bass) join Love to bring to life the numerous compositions Lee (vocals, rhythm electric guitar, piano and percussion) wrote in the spring-summer of '68. The September-October sessions produce twenty-seven tracks, ten of which will later be selected by Elektra to make up the LP "Four Sail". The rest, of noticeably lower quality, will end up on a double album ("Out Here", released in December 1969) compiled by Blue Horizon.

"Four Sail" would instead be released by Elektra almost a year after it was recorded (August 1969), a telling sign of the label's waning interest in the California band's career — a group that, despite the high musical standards it had maintained up to that point, had already run out of commercial potential for some time. Confirming this, a single put out in '68 ("Your Mind And We Belong Together"), the last recording with the old line-up, had slipped by unnoticed, with no chart impact whatsoever.

The album's very title, which when read in English sounds like "for sale", reflects Lee's disillusionment with Elektra, to whom he still owed the contractual obligations Love had signed at the start of their journey back in 1966. Though stripped of his original bandmates and the lysergic drive that had defined the gorgeous "Forever Changes", Lee proves remarkably inspired on "Four Sail" as well. He steers away from psychedelia and heads instead toward a melodic yet incisive rock, thoroughly convincing both in its compositional flair and in its arrangements.

Echoes of the previous record can still be felt on the album opener ("August"), where verse and chorus vividly recall the deliciously poetic atmospheres Love had conjured in 1967. Despite this resemblance, the track is marked by a long, resolute and intoxicating Donnellan solo (from 2:42 to 4:41), riding on abrasive, fuzz-distorted electric bass and a charging drumbeat to trace out frantic electric trajectories. This opening track, framed by a biting riff that fades out into long sustained notes, unmistakably signals the shift toward the new sonic territory explored by this second incarnation of the band.

The album's final, gorgeous track ("Always See Your Face") also harks back to the arrangements of "Forever Changes", especially through the piano's rhythmic role and the English horn placed in the background, smoothing and enriching the transitions between sections. Here it's the bridge and chorus (listen, for instance, from 0:31 to 0:47) that steer the composition back toward classic, straightforward rock, with enchanting melodies and a firmly marked beat.

Once the nods to '67 are out of the way, the band tackles very well-built rock songs that hinge on often excellent melodies and on rough edges in the audio quality, lending the album's overall sound a charming garage-rock aura.

A practical demonstration of this style comes from "Singing Cowboy" (the only case where Lee shares writing credit with another member of the quartet, Donnellan), which delivers a verse-bridge-chorus sequence that's thrilling from the very first listen, plus two splendid instrumental transitions (audible from 0:59 to 1:24 and from 2:04 to 2:28). The track is further enriched by tambourine and maracas, playing a rhythmic-ornamental role, as well as by its sweeping coda (from 2:28 to the end). This is built from "Sympathy For The Devil"-style backing vocals used as counterpoint to an acid Donnellan solo, galloping drums and two different, urgent vocal lines that trade off to bring the song to a close. The lyrics tell unusual cowboy tales with real effectiveness, and are constantly punctuated by the brief crash of the drum's splash cymbal, drenched in reverb to simulate the crack of a whip.

Within the new musical path taken by Lee's compositions, we find two tracks that float along in melodic lightness, with delicate, flowing contours.

The first is "I'm With You" (where you can catch the rounded sound of congas in the background). It's a bright, sunny love song carried by the light, interlocking arpeggios of the two electric guitars and by the leader's unmistakable knack for crafting transitional instrumental passages that had by then become a Love trademark (listen, for instance, from 1:09 to 2:17).

The second is "Your Friend And Mine – Neil's Song", the only mid-tempo track on the album, which, behind its evocative, soft melody recalling the Kinks' pop-rock of 1967-'68 or the Lovin' Spoonful's from the mid-1960s, conceals a rather sad lyric. Free of any bitterness, it recounts how the band's road manager, Neil Rappaport, introduced Love to heroin, and how he himself died of it in '68.

The album's most moving moments are found in two tracks that are ambitious in concept and beautifully realized: "Dream" and "Robert Montgomery". Both born out of Lee's painful, autobiographical experience of parting ways with his former bandmates, they boast melodies that even the best artists active at the time (and since) might envy.

The expressive solo Donnellan pours out so feelingly on "Dream" is housed within a highly original structure (verse – bridge – instrumental transition – verse – chorus – post-chorus – solo), one that flows with rhythmic ease without losing any of its elegant complexity.

The other track that stands as a highlight of "Four Sail", "Robert Montgomery", rings out with the slashing blows Lee delivers on his rhythm guitar, wringing from it a heavily distorted, almost percussive sound, like shattering glass. This combines with the electric tension sparked by Donnellan's winding, sharp lead motif. His intricate playing, pleasantly shifting yet grounded in a consistent underlying theme, runs through every section of this excellent rock song before spilling into multiple solos, as concise as they are intense.

"Nothing", where the maracas once again provide rhythmic backing, carries the listener into the realm of nonconformist rock, with intangible, wavering tones paired with anything-but-ordinary love lyrics. A pleasant departure within the tracklist, mildly experimental in the way it softly stretches out verse and chorus before livening them up again with punchier instrumental sections.

Closing out the list of ten compositions are "Good Times" and "Talking In My Sleep", whose irregular rhythmic-melodic patterns differ in the unusual devices found in their arrangements. In the first case, what stands out is the jazzy drum accompaniment, which opens up into a steady shuffle in the chorus, and Donnellan's two searing solos. In the second case, what strikes the listener is the flow of verse and chorus, which vaguely evoke early Pink Floyd, transplanting their spirit, with delightful inventiveness, into a rock guise more fitting for the late 60s. What's more, the coda of "Talking In My Sleep" contains a bass solo (made jagged by fuzz distortion) that runs parallel to the guitar, in an electrifying interplay of rapid notes.

On this fourth Love album, the collective musical cohesion is remarkable, and far from a given, since the four had only been playing together for a few months. Made possible in part by the space Lee leaves for the creative impulses of the other three musicians, the sonic continuity spun across the ten tracks of "Four Sail" (roughly 37 minutes in total) simultaneously highlights each individual's qualities.

The drummer's style is assertive, dynamic and imaginative, standing out especially on the livelier tracks ("August" and "Singing Cowboy"), but proving just as engaging in the less conventional grooves ("Nothing" and "Talking In My Sleep"). The peak of his effective performances is vividly captured by the bold drum flourishes, punctuated energetically by the bass drum, that we hear in "Robert Montgomery".

The album's liner notes credit Drachen Theaker (fresh off his stint with The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown) as drummer on "Good Time", "I'm With You" and "Your Friend Of Mine – Neil's Song". This is confirmed by Lee himself, and indeed the three tracks in question show a different hand at work, with a commendable expressive ability, though more predictable than what Suranovich displays on the remaining seven songs.

The electric bass stands out for its mobile, note-rich phrases, never intrusive, always meaningful and capable of adapting with great flexibility to Lee's arrangements. In this regard, special mention should go to the gripping bass lines on "Singing Cowboy" and "Robert Montgomery". Also worth noting is Fayad's use of the fuzz pedal on his instrument, present not only on the already-mentioned "August" but also lending a rougher, harsher edge to his sound on "Robert Montgomery" (listen from 1:30 to 2:10 and from 3:02 to the end) and on "Talking In My Sleep" (from 1:05 to 1:23 and from 1:56 to the end).

Jay Donnellan is the band member who most visibly marks Love's sonic shift, transformed by the group's recent upheavals. His guitar takes center stage across a considerable number of solo passages throughout the album, delivered with a confidence and skill that deserve high praise, in stark contrast to the musician's near-total anonymity. His strings are constantly at work spinning nimble, engaging phrases, perfectly suited to the assertive, melodic rock Lee wanted to press into the grooves of this record. The guitarist's vivid, colorful vibrations, possessed of a body and personality that deserved far wider fame, are shaped by a warm, robustly intense distortion. Yet it steers clear of extreme effects in favor of a fine, direct technique that reaches the listener with instant energy, steering the whole album toward a propulsive, immediate strain of rock.

Lee's singing, often relying on his distinctive high, passionate tone, sounds less polished and refined compared to his vocal parts on "Forever Changes", in keeping with the shift in musical genre the Californian musician had undergone in the meantime. His unmistakably touching, light timbre also reaches more combative moments, while the vocal line is on quite a few occasions doubled with dedicated overdubs to thicken its texture (for instance, on "Good Times", "Singing Cowboy" and "Always See Your Face").

Another studio device that runs through the LP is the reverb added to the recordings by the label's engineers during mixing. Intended to give the overall sound greater depth and allure, it blurs many details, which as a result become harder to make out. What's more, the reverb is at times perceptibly overdone on the drums and vocals, inappropriately distorting a few (thankfully rare) moments of the record.

"Four Sail" would peak at a mere number 102 on the American charts and wouldn't even chart in the UK, adding to the long, shameful list of cases in which top-tier rock musicianship gets brutally cast aside. The good reputation this album has partly regained over the past few decades still isn't enough, however, to give it its full due.

Much the same can be said of the three musicians backing Lee on the album: the warmth and vitality of their respective performances are unmistakably positive, and certainly worth remembering as displays of compelling passion for music. They would go on playing in Love for roughly another year, between live shows and a couple more, lesser LPs, before vanishing from the scene in the early 70s.

With "Four Sail", Arthur Lee once again proves himself a musician, composer, arranger, producer and singer of enormous worth, drastically underrated relative to his real artistic merits. Here he manages to move beyond the psychedelic pop-rock of the recent past, overcoming the major difficulties brought on by the band's overhaul and brilliantly rising to the challenge of following up a work as enchanting as "Forever Changes".

P.S.: In the liner notes for "Four Sail", we also find harmonica listed among the instruments played by Lee. This, however, is an error, most likely due to the fact that among the tracks Elektra dropped at the time of release is one that does in fact feature harmonica. That track would later end up on the already-mentioned, disappointing follow-up LP ("Out Here").

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17/03/2026