The name Arthur Lee rebounded back to life this week with High Moon Records’ announcement that his lost album Black Beauty will emerge from bootleg glory as a new release this summer. Love will once more be alive and Arthur Lee risen from the grave.
The founder of Love started the band in 1965. Hollywood was their home. They played up and down Sunset Strip; the Brave New World, Hullabaloo, Bido Lito’s and the Sea Witch. An appearance at the Whisky a Go-Go earned Love a recording contract with Elektra Records. The group scored a Southern California hit with a cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition “My Little Red Book” and hit the US charts with “7&7 Is”. FOREVER CHANGES (1967) is considered the pinnacle of Love’s musical career.
They might have been bigger if they had a hit single, but success eluded kaleidoscopic members of Love. Arthur Lee was the star. He dismissed drummers, guitar players, and bassist whenever they threatened his genius.
Drugs were involved in his paranoia.
It was the late-60s.
The 70s began with the break-up of Love after the failure of their 1971 LP to chart on Billboard. Fame was followed by apathy. Acid rock gave way to more commercial guitar god bands. Arthur Lee’s final recording effort was abandoned to the bootleggers. Trouble with the Law in the 90s earned Arthur Lee a 12-year sentence for illegal possession of firearms. The harsh punishment stemmed from previous convictions for drugs and assault. A judge released the musician in 2001 after the court determined that the DA in the 1995 trial had been guilty of misconduct.
Another black man imprisoned by ‘legal error’.
Arthur Lee was grateful that his DNA didn’t connect him to 9/11. A punk band approached the singer about playing his old hits with them as back-up. I was lucky enough to see two shows of Arthur Lee and Love in Williamsburg. AP, my friend/architect accompanied to the second concert. The Polish Meeting Hall was packed with rock and roll aficionados. We sang every song and I cried out for I’M DOWN, the dirge ballad about heroin addiction. Arthur Lee stayed away from that song. I couldn’t blame him.
Heroin is trouble.
Sadly Arthur Lee died in 2006.
But dead or not he will come to life with BLACK BEAUTY.
Not only him, but Jimi Hendrix too, because Arthur Lee was trying so hard to be a god.
The only god known to play the left-handed guitar.
The critics hate BLACK BEAUTY, but those flacks are in it for the money.
They certainly don’t get the glory.
To hear MIDNIGHT SUN from BLACK BEAUTY, please go to the following URL