A L.A. band with a larger following in the UK than their home country
One ongoing feature in music literature is the “greatest albums” lists. Most are found online, but the Brits still publish several trades like Uncut and Mojo, and they issue their own version of these “lists” every few years or so. Rolling Stone may have been the first to formally publish one in 1987 with their “The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years” special issue. Since then, everyone else has followed suit, even though they generally pick the same albums: Beatles, Stones, Van Morrison, Michael Jackson, Springsteen. The difference is usually found in the top spot, which always changes: Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, Revolver—they rotate ‘em around. Even though they can be repetitive, I’ve always loved these lists. Whenever a new one hits the stands or appears online, I’m eager to dig in. My first look is always to find out where Love’s Forever Changes ranks and read the short review, looking for any new tidbit I didn’t know before. Forever Changes always gets a higher ranking in the British publications over the American lists—Rolling Stone didn’t even include it in their 1987 issue. In 2022, Uncut released The 500 Greatest Albums of the 1960s ultimate issue and Forever Changes ranked third, before The White Album and after Revolver. (The Velvet Underground and Nico took the top spot). Love was a Los Angeles band and Forever Changes, their third album, is still relatively unknown in the U.S., mostly admired by musicians and music lovers with eclectic tastes. In England, it’s royalty.
Forever Changes was recorded in 1967 during the so-called “Summer of Love,” but it sounds like nothing Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane were making at the time. It’s acoustic and orchestral, with bizarre songwriting and beautiful string arrangements. “The production, by [Arthur] Lee with assistance from Bruce Botnick, is devoid of period clichés—backward tracks, electronic effects, excessive reverb, phase-shifting, helium backing vocals, sitars, goo-goo-ga-joobs, etc. are nowhere to be found, resulting in a record that is hard to date as it is to classify,” wrote Andrew Hultkrans in his 33 1/3 book on Forever Changes. The album was not a hit upon release, reaching only #154 on the American album chart with the lead-off single “Alone Again Or” not even breaking the Hot 100. In the UK, the album did much better, just missing the top twenty. Love and its singer, songwriter and band leader Arthur Lee would release several records under the Love name through the 1990s, but none would be very successful, and none would maintain the same stature as the group’s third album.
Love was formed in 1965 and was one of the first interracial rock bands. Arthur Lee was born in Memphis but mostly grew up in Los Angeles, along with his friend and future Love guitarist Johnny Echols. Lee and Echols had several bands in the early sixties: Arthur Lee and the LAGs, The American Four and The Grass Roots before settling on Love. “Arthur and Johnny would quickly become comrades-in-arms, with Arthur as captain and Johnny as his trusted first lieutenant — a relationship that would be integral to their later success with Love,” explained John Einarson in his book Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love. “Johnny was a significant contributor to the band’s musicality, arrangements, overall sound, and onstage appeal. Musically, he was Arthur’s right hand man, often able to translate the singer’s compositional vision into reality thanks to his facility with the guitar.” Rounding out the group was guitarist and singer Bryan MacLean, bassist Ken Forssi and drummer Alban ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer, later replaced by Michael Stuart-Ware.
Love became a fixture on the L.A. Sunset Strip playing the popular club of the day: Hollywood’s Brave New World, Bido Lito’s, the Whisky A Go Go, and the Hullabaloo. Lee, by far the most striking member, ruled the stage with long puffy hair and sideburns, boots (sometimes only one), dark triangle glasses and a hazy look of disconnect on his face. Some have claimed that Jimi Hendrix modeled his look from Arthur Lee. “When Arthur wasn’t wearing his signature one combat boot and one bare foot, he wore a pair of black Gestapo boots that buckled up the side, skin-tight black Levi’s, short silk scarf around his neck and black leather jacket, an outfit that helped convey the attitude that was such an important part of his on-stage persona,” recalled Michael Stuart-Ware in his book Pegasus Continuum. “It worked, too. The fans loved it. Especially the boots. He always left them unbuckled because he was a free spirit and nobody could make him buckle them up if he didn’t want to.”
Love signed to the folk imprint Elektra Records after label owner Jac Holzman saw them playing at Bido Lito’s. The group was the first rock band signed to the label. “I developed a relationship with Arthur that had a hint of wariness to it,” Jac told John Einarson. “I knew he was a scoundrel. But there are scoundrels and there are charming scoundrels.” Love would only score one top 40 hit, “7 & 7 is” in 1966, but they would release four albums for Elektra. Their self-titled 1966 debut was folk-rock, similar in style to early Byrds and garage bands of the time. For their second album Da Capo, Michael Stuart-Ware and flautist Tjay Cantrelli were added and ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer moved to keyboards, turning Love into a 7-piece. The sound differed completely from the debut, a mix of punk rock, jazz, flamenco, psychedelia and folk with some of Lee’s strangest songwriting. Johnny Echols, in an interview with Einarson, remembered it as growth and maturity in the band. “By then, we had played together more and were able to play sophisticated music rather than just rocking out. It was 180 degrees from that first album to Da Capo. It doesn’t even sound like the same group.” He also added, “On the first album, a lot of those songs were written for dancing. We were playing loud music for young kids at our shows. The second album was a bit more adult; it was for sitting down and listening to.” This would be even more clear with the band’s next album. It would be their masterpiece.
When Love began recording Forever Changes, they were a group in crisis. Tjay Cantrelli and ‘Snoopy’ were dismissed, returning the group to a five-piece, but bad blood had been brewing for some time. After the debut, Lee began dominating the songwriting with Bryan only contributing one song, “Orange Skies,” to Da Capo (which Arthur sang lead) and the rest of the band only earning songwriting credit on the side-long jam “Revolution.” Bryan would get two songs on Forever Changes and Johnny wouldn’t receive so much as a co-write, which put a damper on the first day of recording. On day one of the first session, the group was not playing well together, so Arthur stopped the session and announced that other musicians would be brought in to play on the album. The band members would only contribute backing vocals and overdubs. So, on day two, in came the Wrecking Crew—Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Billy Strange and Don Randi—the session players that had done the backing on many Los Angeles recordings, including the Beach Boys and the first Byrds album. They recorded two songs, but it didn’t have the sound of Love the band. Surprising, the prospect of someone else making their record brought the band together, and they all agreed to go back and develop all their parts for each song. A few months later, the band started over, and this time, they were prepared to back the songs that make Forever Changes such an exquisite recording.
From the start, Forever Changes was going to have brass and strings. David Angel, who had studied classical composition since he was a teenager and composed music for television and film, was brought in to handle the orchestration. What made Angel ideal for this recording was not letting his ego compete with Arthur’s. He knew his place on the record and except for Bryan’s songs, where he’s listed as the arranger, he was content to take the title of Orchestrator to Arthur’s Arranger. Arthur sang the string and horn parts for each song to Angel, and he created the orchestration from what was in Arthur’s head. Forever Changes features acoustic guitar, beautiful singing and eerie songwriting, but, by far, the magic sauce that ties it all together is the lovely string arrangements. “Love’s third album is a uniquely homogenous body of work that transcends the confines of context and era,” wrote John Einarson. “It continues to resonate with timeless appeal that requires no prior connection to the era or cultural circumstances of its making. Forever Changes speaks a multi-generational language. It remains a consistent and cohesive set piece; the product, according to innumerable fans and critics, of genius and vision.”
The original group cut one final single, “Your Mind and We Belong Together” b/w “Laughing Stock,” but it would be the end for all involved. Arthur replaced the band members, hiring three new musicians. The new Love recorded enough songs to fit on a triple-album, and Elektra picked ten and released the last Love album for the label, Four Sail, in 1969. Arthur took the remaining tracks to the Blue Thumb label and released the double-album Out Here (renaming himself ‘Arthurly’ in the album credits). The music was heavy rock, and it sounded nothing like the group’s earlier records. Love released one more album for Blue Thumb, False Start, in 1970, and then left the label. Despite including Jimi Hendrix playing guitar on the track “The Everlasting First,” the album did not sell to expectation.
Arthur Lee signed with different labels during the next two decades, recording under the Love banner and his own name, with an ever-changing cast of band members. The music was a mix of R&B and hard rock, and some recordings were shelved and released at later dates. There was no attempt to return to the symphonic sounds of Forever Changes. Arthur also had his share of legal problems, and in 1995, he went to prison on gun charges, under the three strikes rule in California. Lee served six years and after being released on appeal in 2001, he began touring Europe with his new band, Baby Lemonade, as Arthur Lee and Love. Forever Changes has remained Love’s best-received album, but Arthur never believed he could play it on stage. His different variations of Love performed some of the songs during their live sets, but recreating the sound without dragging around an expensive orchestra just wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, when Arthur got out of prison, that’s exactly what he did. He called it “the cage to the stage” and he toured the complete Forever Changes in Europe with strings and brass. It gave the UK fans one last opportunity to see and hear the music from this beloved album live before Arthur passed away in 2006. Jac Holzman summed it up well when he told Einarson, “I knew I loved Forever Changes the first time I heard it. I knew it was going to be around for a while. There are some things that you get from artists that you know are just intuitive. Arthur certainly left something behind that is truly magical.”
Forever Changes continues to delight those lucky enough to discover it, finding out what enthusiastic fans in the UK know so well. In June 2002, a year after being was released from prison, Arthur Lee and Forever Changes were honored in England by the House of Commons. Arthur was present as several Labour MPs put forward an Early Day Motion declaring Forever Changes “the greatest album of all time.” The always extravagant Lee, who, according to nme.com, was decked out in “dark glasses, a bright red cowboy shirt and distinctive bandana with cowboy hat on top,” was greeted by several members of the House, who acted like teenagers meeting their rock star hero for the very first time.