Love

Love biography

Love was an American rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were led by singer/songwriter Arthur Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols. One of the first racially diverse American pop bands, their music reflected different influences, combining elements of rock and roll, garage rock, folk and psychedelia.

History

1963-1966

Lee, who had lived in Los Angeles since the age of five, had been recording since 1963 with his bands, the LAG's and Lee's American Four. He had also produced a single, "My Diary", for Rosa Lee Brooks in 1964 which featured Jimi Hendrix on guitar. A garage outfit, The Sons Of Adam, which included future Love drummer Michael Stuart, also recorded a Lee composition, "Feathered Fish". However, after viewing a Byrds performance, Lee determined to join the newly minted folk-rock sound of the Byrds to his primarily rhythm and blues style. Soon after, he formed The Grass Roots with guitarist Johnny Echols (another Memphis native), bass guitarist John (Fleck) Fleckenstein and drummer Don Conka. Byrds roadie Bryan MacLean joined the band just before they changed their name to Love, spurred by the release of a single by another group called The Grass Roots. Fleckenstein went on to join the Standells in 1967.

Love started playing the Los Angeles clubs in April 1965 and became a popular act. At this time, they were playing extended numbers such as "Revelation" (originally titled "John Lee Hooker") and getting the attention of such contemporaries as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. The band lived communally in a house called "the Castle", and their first two albums included photographs shot in the garden of that house.

1966-1968

Signed to the Elektra Records label, the band scored a minor hit single in 1966 with their version of Burt Bacharach's "My Little Red Book". In the meantime, Ken Forssi (from a post-"Wipe Out" lineup of The Surfaris) became the bassist for the group. Their first album, Love, was released in July 1966, and included "Signed D.C" and MacLean's "Softly To Me". The album sold moderately well and reached #57 on the Billboard 200 chart.

In August, 1966, the single "7 and 7 Is" notable for the exceptional guitar work of Johnny Echols became their highest-charting at #33 in the Billboard Hot 100. Two more members were added around this time, Tjay Cantrelli (aka John Barberis) on woodwinds and Michael Stuart on drums. Pfisterer, never a confident drummer, switched to harpsichord.

Their musical reputation largely rests on two albums issued in 1967, Da Capo and Forever Changes. Da Capo, released in February of that year, included rockers like "Stephanie Knows Who" and "7 and 7 Is", and melodic songs such as "¡Qué Vida!" and "She Comes in Colors". Cantrelli and Pfisterer soon left the band, leaving it as a five-piece once again.

Forever Changes, released in December 1967, is a suite of songs using acoustic guitars, strings and horns that was recorded while the band was falling apart as the result of various abuses and a failed power play by Bryan Maclean, trying to get more of his songs on the album. The band recorded the album in only 64 hours. Writer Richard Meltzer, in his The Aesthetics of Rock, commented on Love's "orchestral moves", "post-doper word contraction cuteness" and Lee's vocal style that serves as a "reaffirmation of Johnny Mathis". Forever Changes included one hit single, the MacLean-written "Alone Again Or", while "You Set the Scene" received airplay from some progressive rock radio stations. By this stage, Love were far more popular in the UK, where the album reached #24, than in their home country, where it could only reach #154.

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