Love "Black Beauty" 1973(rec) 2012(released)****

Love's Forever Changes took its place in my all-time Top 5 AT first listen, sometime in late '88, and has remained there despite my going through various stages in musical taste. The two albums that preceded it were also early favorites that I listened regularly at the time. I realize now that I haven't heard any of them recently - for years probably, but that doesn't matter. These songs are etched in my brain. Over the years, I collected almost everything I could find by Arthur Lee and Love, but the rest only contained occasional glimpses of their genius. You'd read about long out-of-print albums like Vindicator and Real to Reel, or unreleased ones like Black Beauty, and, even though logic tells you they can't be much better than their readily available early work, you can't wait to get your hands on them and pick them apart to find the hidden treasure within. Some tracks from Black Beauty saw a bootleg release in the 90's, but it took many more years for these recordings to be officially released - a limited run of 5,000 vinyl copies, followed by a limited Deluxe CD reissue two years later. My copy is Nr. 2107. It's a beautiful issue on 180gr vinyl with a multicolored booklet (28 big format pages) containing contemporary photos and notes on the creation of the album. At the time, Lee had gone through multiple incarnations of Love, and even released a solo album (Vindicator) with little success. He nevertheless kept on soldiering, looking for the kind of bandmates who could realize his new musical vision: less folk and psychedelia, more hard rock and funk. He settled on an all-black lineup, the first such band for him - hence the, kindof on the nose, album title. The first two tracks "Young and Able (Good and Evil)" and "Midnight Sun" present us with a mixture of hard rock, blues and soul. Hendrix-like lead guitar courtesy of Melvin Whittington and passionate, unusually shouty, lead vocals serve to distinguish them from previous Arthur Lee compositions. "Can't Find It" is a nice ballad with a Southern rock feel, while "Walk Right In" (played as a medley with older Love track "Always See Your Face") is a throwback to Love's early folk-rock style. "Skid" is a pleasant soul tune, while Side B opens with a surprising calypso ditty called "Beep Beep". "Stay Away" is a dark garage rocker followed by "Lonely Pigs", an ironic country-ish ballad aimed at the LAPD. "See Myself in You" is a nice country soul number, and the album closes like it started, with a funk rocker featuring heavy fuzz guitar, called "Product of the Times". Unlike other "lost albums", the production is clean and punchy, thanks to an old friend of the band: Paul Rothchild, best known for his work with The Doors. Comprising elements of soul, folk, and hard rock, Black Beauty didn't really belong to any of those categories. This fact, along with the lack of a strong lead single, suggests to me that, even if it was released at the time, it wouldn't have succeeded in revitalizing Lee's career. We'll never know for sure, as the company which was supposed to release the album went under. As a result, the recordings were shelved for 40 years and master tapes were lost. The source used for this release was a relatively clean acetate given by Lee to future collaborator John Sterling. Semi-forgotten, it gained legendary status as interest in Lee's work started growing again during the 90's and 00's. And, while not exactly a hidden treasure, it's probably the best post-60's Love LP. It'd be interesting to see the band continue in this style and build on what they've achieved here, but -true to form- Lee enlisted yet a different Love lineup with whom he released a softer soul LP called Reel to Real. If you, like me, love Love, you'd better snatch one of the last remaining vinyls. The Deluxe CD edition on the High Moon label is also excellent, while there's a recent British CD reissue, too. Both CD releases contain the same bonus tracks: three live recordings, a song from a movie soundtrack, and an interview with Arthur Lee. 

**** for Young and Able (Good and Evil), Midnight Sun, Can't Find It, Skid, Stay Away, Product of the Times

*** for Walk Right In, See Myself in You

** for Beep Beep, Lonely Pigs 

Love "On Earth Must Be" 2004****

Arthur Lee's 21st century comeback was one of the most amazing and unexpected in show business - I count myself very lucky to have witnessed it. I had fallen in love with the music of Love when I first heard it in my late teens. Their tunes, the lyrics, and Arthur's voice really moved me - both their acclaimed masterpiece Forever Changes and their simpler garage folk debut rank among my all-time favorites. But I never expected to see them live: rumors were that Lee was a lost cause, his talent was totally spent, and his behavior was too erratic for any labels/concert organizers to bother with him. He was almost forgotten by the mid-80's but the 90's saw his popularity rise steadily, so that he was able to tour again and release a pretty decent album (to be presented here sometime, along with the rest of his discography). Until, that is, the American penal system decided to make an example out of him: he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the "negligent discharge of a firearm", which basically means shooting in the air. Who could imagine that a victimless offence could carry a heavier penalty than, say, voluntary manslaughter? Well, that's what you get in California under the "three strikes law" - especially if you happen to be black, as many observed at the time. He was released on December 2001 after serving 5,5 years - not so much because of the support movement by a handful of musicians and fans, but because the judge who convicted him was found guilty of judicial misconduct, leading to a lot of his decisions getting overthrown. Lee immediately contacted Baby Lemonade, the neo-psychedelic band that had backed him during his first attempt for a career revival in the 90's, and they started touring the world again. This is when I first had the chance to see them, summer 2002 in an open air double bill with Porcupine Tree as headliners. I came to the gig apprehensively: yes, Arthur Lee and Love had produced some of my favorite records, but -even in the 60's- they never had a great live reputation, plus the man had been out of commission for years. Well, I've seen hundreds of gigs but this counts as one of the best ever: I've never seen someone so exhilarated to be on stage and to be able to perform his songs in front of an audience. When he sang those lyrics from "Red Telephone" you really felt chills up your spine "They're locking them up today/They're throwing away the key/I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?...We're all normal and we want our freedom". One could feel the "love" flow to and from the audience, and it seemed that happy endings are indeed possible. Next year the band were back, this time augmented with horns and strings, to play their masterpiece Forever Changes the way it was meant to sound, replicating the ornate studio arrangements. If the 2002 tour was the unlikely resurrection of an underground legend, the Forever Changes Tour was the victory lap: High-profile media coverage, big venues, and a live CD/DVD in the works. Once more, the enthusiasm was palpable. The third, and last, time I saw Artur Lee and Love was in 2005. This time they relied more on their experience and musical affinity rather than some sense of elation. After 4 years touring together, Lee and Baby Lemonade had morphed into the new Love, and arguably better than the originals were: not burdened by drug problems, clearly in love with the material, the younger guys happy to be playing alongside one of their heroes. As a bonus, Johnny Echols from the original band was there to provide another link with the past, and he obviously had great chemistry with both Lee and the other band members. For this occasion I had come together with my girlfriend to share my excitement about the band with her. At the time I thought she was unlucky to have missed the first two magical concerts, but in the light of what happened next, she -and everyone else who witnesses Love during those last years- was very lucky indeed. 3 months later, Arthur Lee and Love would cut their tour short and part ways. The general assumption was that this was due to a relapse to Lee's old quirks which had hindered the original band's progress, plagued his solo career and driven him to prison. Some kind of unnamed health issue was also mentioned. He never publicly acknowledged its seriousness, and was busy making plans for a new Love line-up featuring members of fellow Memphis residents The Reigning Sound. It later transpired that the man was sick with leukemia, and only had a few months to live. He never played again, and finally died on August 3rd, 2006 at the age of 61.  Had the judge's decision not been overturned, he probably would have died in prison and be remembered as just another psychedelic casualty like Syd Barrett. Fortunately that didn't happen. Instead, these last 4 years as an active musician (2002-2005) have reconnected him with his audience, fed his legend, and brought him the international acclaim he so richly deserved and which had eluded him the first time around.

In interviews conducted during his post-prison renaissance (2002-2005) Arthur Lee often teased about having new material and about recording an album with the new incarnation of Love (AKA the neo-psychedelic band Baby Lemonade). And while I knew he wasn't the most reliable person in the world, I really wanted to take him at his word and hoped he still had another good album in him. As it is, the great outpouring of songwriting genius that was Forever Changes was followed by a series of sympathetic but somewhat patchy albums 1969-1974, some live recordings, and just two more studio LP's in the course of the next 3 decades. As I mentioned in my lengthy prologue, Arthur Lee and Love were still a great live experience at that point, but the songwriting muse had left long ago. Which makes this short EP a real treat: with the exception of a rare 1994 7' single, this is the only studio recording of the tightest and longest-running Love line-up. Even more importantly, these are Arthur's very last recordings - 15 years after his passing, it's safe to assume that if there was anything left in the vaults it'd have appeared by now. "Rainbow In The Storm" is a great opener in the ornate style of Forever Changes: same kind of arrangement, with Lee sounding eerily like his 23-year old self. "All I Want Is You" is a pleasant upbeat number - at the time I thought it was a new song, but it later appeared in a live bootleg from the 90's, so I guess it had been sitting on the shelf for more than a decade. "Love Me Again" is -surprising as it seems- a reggae/ska song, and "Message To Pretty" a faithful recreation of a gorgeous folk rock ballad from Love's 1966 debut. The closing "Feathered Fish" is a big gift to old fans: this scorching garage rocker was written by Arthur Lee sometime prior to 1966 and given away to his friends in a band called Sons Of Adam (their drummer Michael Stuart would soon join Love, while singer-guitarist Randy Holden would go on with Blue Cheer). Collectors had been trying to find the "original" Love version forever, but it turns out they had never recorded it, not even as a demo. I'm not sure whether they even ever played it live, maybe they thought that it was too similar to their other garage dynamite "7 + 7 Is". Artur did play it with Love/Baby Lemonade sometime in the 90's, but that version wasn't officially released, although it later surfaced on a bootleg. Which makes this 2004 recording the only official version of "Feathered Fish" by its writer. The playing on all tracks is very good, as is the recording quality. Too bad it didn't get picked up by a record label and given a wider release: the band pressed it on CD-R and sold it at their gigs (I got it at the aforementioned 2005 show). Maybe a few copies reached the stores, but I don't think there are a lot of them around. Given that the paper label is glued on the CD-R and that the glue is known to affect CD-Rs negatively over time, many of these CD-Rs have began to deteriorate - or so I'm told, my own copy still plays well. Hopefully it'll get a good quality repress sometime, ideally on vinyl. The historic value of these recordings is huge, while the artistic one is not to be faulted either.

**** for Rainbow In The Storm, Message To Pretty, Feathered Fish

*** for All I Want Is You, Love Me