Love was an American rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were led by singer/songwriter Arthur Lee who wrote most of the songs, although some of their best known songs were written by Bryan MacLean. 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.

While finding only modest success on the music charts, Love would come to be praised by critics as one of the finest and most important American rock groups of their era. Their third album Forever Changes (1967) is generally regarded as their masterpiece.



Arthur Lee, who was originally from [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis,_Tennessee]Memphis, Tennessee[/url] but 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 written & also produced the 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 performance by the Byrds, Lee became determined to form a group that joined the newly minted folk-rock sound of the Byrds to his primarily rhythm and blues style.

Singer, songwriter / guitarist Bryan MacLean, whom Lee had met when he was working as a roadie for The Byrds, joined the band just before they changed their name from the Grass Roots to Love, spurred by the release of a single by another group called The Grass Roots.MacLean had also been playing guitar in bands since about 1963 but picked up music early. Neighbor Frederick Loewe, of the composers Lerner & Loewe, recognized him as a "melodic genius" at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. Also joining the band was another Memphis native, lead guitarist Johnny Echols. From L.A. was drummer Don Conka. A short time later, Conka was replaced by Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer. Love's first bassist, Johnny Fleckenstein, went on to join the Standells in 1967.

Fleckenstein was replaced by Ken Forssi (formerly of a post-"Wipe Out" lineup of The Surfaris).Love started playing the Los Angeles clubs in April 1965 and became a popular local attraction. 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.


Signed to the Elektra Records label as their first rock band act, the band scored a minor hit single in 1966 with their version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "My Little Red Book." Their first album, Love, was released in March 1966. The album sold moderately well and reached No. 57 on the Billboard 200[/url] chart.In August 1966 the single written by Arthur Lee "7 and 7 Is," notable for the exceptional guitar work of Johnny Echols and proto-punk styled drumming by Pfisterer, became their highest-charting single at No. 33 in the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100]Billboard Hot 100.Two more members were added around this time, Tjay Cantrelli (real name John Barbieri) on woodwinds and Michael Stuart on drums. Pfisterer, never a confident drummer, switched to harpsichord.


Their musical reputation largely rests on the next two albums, Da Capo and Forever Changes. Da Capo, released in November 1966, included "7 and 7 Is" as well as the subsequent singles "She Comes in Colors" and "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A1Que_Vida!]¡Que Vida![/url]" and MacLean's "Orange Skies." Cantrelli and Pfisterer soon left the band, leaving it as a five-piece once again.


Forever Changes is the third album by the American rock band Love. It was released by Elektra Records in November 1967 and would be the final album by the original band, as subsequent albums featured leader Arthur Lee backed by a variety of new players.


Forever Changes failed to achieve commercial success when it was first released in 1967, but it has since become recognized as one of the finest albums to come out of the Summer of Love, ranking 40th on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 as well as being added to the National Recording Registry in May 2012.


Upon its release in late 1967, Forever Changes was largely unsuccessful commercially. It spent 10 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart, according to Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Albums, peaking at #154 in 1968, by far the worst showing among Love's first three albums. 

Forever Changes had a much stronger showing in Great Britain, where it reached #24 on the UK album chart in 1968. It peaked at #63 when it re-entered the chart in 2001.


The 1979 edition of The Rolling Stone Record Guide gave the album a rating of five stars (out of five). It also received five stars in the 1983 edition of the guide and in the fourth edition that was published in 2004.In a special issue of Mojo magazine, Forever Changes was ranked the second greatest psychedelic album of all time. In the January 1996 issue, Mojo readers selected Forever Changes as #11 of the "100 Greatest Albums Ever Made."


Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album 40th in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in the December 11, 2003 issue.In 2003, NME ranked the album #6 on their list of greatest albums of all time. In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Forever Changes the 82nd greatest album of all time.


In a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4, the album was ranked 83rd in the 100 greatest albums of all time.The album was included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.



Four Sail is the fourth album by the American rock band, Love, released in 1969.


By mid-1968, Arthur Lee was the only remaining member of the Forever Changes line-up of Love. Three LPs worth of material were recorded in a makeshift studio in a Los Angeles warehouse, with Elektra Records given the rights to first choice of tracks to fulfill Lee's contractual obligation, and the remainder released as the Blue Thumb LP Out Here. For the album, Lee utilized double vocalization. He would play a vocal, and overdub it with another similar sounding one.


"Always See Your Face" was featured in the 2000 film High Fidelity and was included on the official soundtrack.

Out Here is the fifth album by the American rock band Love, released in December 1969 on Blue Thumb Records in the United States, and Harvest in the United Kingdom.


Recording three LPs worth of material with a new line-up, Lee gave one to Elektra Records in order to fulfill the contract that had been in place for nearly four years. Four Sail was released in August 1969.Arranging the two remaining LPs into a double album, Lee signed a new contract with Blue Thumb Records and oversaw the release of the seventeen-track Out Here in December 1969, a few months after Elektra released Four Sail.


The Out Here title came from the name of the cover painting, created by Burt Shonberg in 1965.

False Start is the sixth album by the American rock band Love, released in December 1970.


The second and final Love album for Blue Thumb Records saw bandleader Arthur Lee heavily influenced by his friend, Jimi Hendrix, with Hendrix appearing on the opening track, "The Everlasting First", one of several tracks that Hendrix recorded with Love at a March 1970 session.


"Stand Out", a song from the band's previous album Out Here, was included here in a live rendition.


Three selections from this LP were added to the Love compilation by Love, entitled "Out There".

Reel to Real is the seventh album by the American rock band Love, released in 1974. It will be released on CD for the first time on November 27, 2015, making it the last Love album to be released on that format.


Reel to Real was the first official Love album in four years, and bandleader Arthur Lee recorded the album with studio musicians after dismissing all previous band members. It follows the release of Lee's solo album Vindicator in 1972 and two different Love albums that had been recorded but never released.Reel to Real featured the same musicians that played on the unreleased Black Beauty and was originally intended as part of a two-album deal with Robert Stigwood's RSO Records.

A long-time admirer of Arthur Lee, Skip Taylor, approached the label and convinced Stigwood to give the previously commercially unsuccessful Lee the largest advance he would ever receive, followed by the biggest touring opportunity any incarnation of Love would ever embark on, opening for acts such as Lou Reed and Eric Clapton.The tour was a disaster due to Lee's increasing erratic behavior.



In the autumn of 1996, Arthur Lee was sentenced to 12 years for illegal negligent discharge of a firearm. California's three strikes law meant Lee was forced to serve a prison term, having previously been convicted on "a couple of assault and drug charges" in the 1980s. While in prison Lee refused visitors and interviews. Former bandmates Bryan MacLean and Ken Forssi both died while Lee was incarcerated, ending any speculation as to a full-fledged Love reunion.

On December 12, 2001, Lee was released from prison, having served 5½ years of his original sentence. A federal appeals court in California reversed the charge of negligent discharge of a firearm, as it found that the prosecutor at Lee's trial was guilty of misconduct. After Lee was freed, he put together a new incarnation of Love and planned a Forever Changes 35th Anniversary Tour, to kick off at the Royal Festival Hall in London.


In 2002, Arthur Lee began touring in earnest under the name "Love with Arthur Lee". This new phase of his career met with great success, and he performed to enthusiastic audiences and critical acclaim throughout Europe, North America and Australia. This incarnation of Love was composed of the members of the band Baby Lemonade, who had first performed with Lee in May 1993 at Raji's. The band began performing the Forever Changes album in its entirety, often with a string and horn section. A live CD and DVD of this material was released in 2003.


In April 2006 it was publicly announced that Lee was being treated for acute myeloid leukemia. A tribute fund was set up shortly after the announcement, with a series of benefit concerts to be performed to help pay medical bills. The most notable of these concerts was produced by Steve Weitzman of SW Productions at New York's Beacon Theater on June 23, 2006, and featured Robert Plant, Ian Hunter, Ryan Adams, Nils Lofgren, Yo La Tengo, Garland Jeffreys, Johnny Echols (Love's original lead guitarist) and Flashy Python & The Body Snatchers (featuring Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah). Backed by Ian Hunter's band, Plant performed 12 songs, including five Led Zeppelin songs and five recorded by Love in the 60s ("7 and 7 Is", "A House Is Not A Motel", "Bummer in the Summer", "Old Man" and "Hey Joe").A benefit concert was held in far off Dublin, Ireland.



Lee underwent several months of aggressive treatment, which included three bouts of chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant on May 25, 2006 using stem cells from an umbilical cord blood donor; Lee was the first adult patient in Tennessee to receive this treatment. His condition worsened, however, and he died on August 3, 2006, at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, with his wife Diane at his side.