Arthur Lee RIP

pooldude

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Re: R.I.P. Arthur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKRhxgGaXM


Back around '83 I played a standing-room-only gig @ the Troubadour with my band Noizey Walker, on the bill with Odin, the young band that was later featured in the Decline of Western Civilization II movie.

During one of the intermissions, famed Troubadour owner Doug Weston came on stage to announce a surprise appearance by Arthur Lee, accompanied only by an acoustic guitarist & a conga player. The crowd went almost completely silent...I think I was almost the only person there who was excited to see him.

The Troubadour audience practically ignored Arthur, & then some even booed him for not being "Metal"...with most of the crowd being completely oblivious to who he was, & the importance of his old band Love...which had been one of the biggest draws on the Sunset Strip, only 15 years earlier.

568931.jpg


I remember thinking how fast times change, & how short a memory many rock fans have...& I felt down-rite sorry for this guy, who was one of my high school era heroes, now playing to an almost hostile crowd.

lovepromo.jpg

About the same time, I owned Visions Music, a guitar shop across the street from the Hollywood Post Office, on Selma & Gower. Bryan MacLean (who wrote Love's biggest hit "Alone Again Or") used to come in & buy guitar strings & various supplies. He looked really run down, somewhat of a drug casualty. One day he had to write a check, for a very small purchase, because the guy was low on cash. That’s when he pulled out his I.D., & of course I recognized his name.

Bryan brightened up noticeably when I told him how much I respected Love, since I was a kid in high school. Bryan told me how he was surviving primarily on his meager royalties from the ‘60s, & that he had turned to Christianity, & that he was trying to write with his kid sister Maria McKee, who had some success with Lone Justice in the ‘80s.

By the late ‘90s, Bryan was dead; he never really reconciled with Arthur. And of course, most people know that Arthur has had a lot of problems, both legal, physical, & mental.

Now Arthur is gone, sooner than he deserved. It’s not a very happy ending to a story that shined so brightly in the ‘60s.

love.jpg
 
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Martha Washington

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Re: R.I.P. Arthur

And so the story ended
Do you know it oh so well?
Well should you need I'll tell you..
The end-end-end-end-end-end-end-end
And...


I remember a big billboard for Forever Changes on the Sunset Strip, one of my earliest memories of the times I spent in Hollywood as a kid. Over the years I knew some kids who's parents worked for Elektra Records. Love was always the second band out of those people's mouths after the Doors. I don't know if Love still had prospects but my recollection is that those people loved working for Elektra records and that they were proud of those bands.
In the late 70's I knew a street crazy who used to SAY he was Arthur Lee. Even though I knew he wasn't it was sobering , like pooldude says, how fickle that line of work is. For all I knew Arthur Lee, once the toast of the town was a street crazy himself.
I know "Forever Changes" gets a lot of lip from us music loving oldsters but I think it's worth mentioning because Lee has often said he felt his mortality hovering over him when he made that album, that he thought he wasn't long for this world. Well, despite some good singles, it's a safe bet that 'Forever Changes' will be the best known album the guy did. It seems to rank in 'best album' lists pretty consistently these days. His odd longings make this one of the most interesting artifacts of that 'summer of love' era. He didn't go as quick as he imagined but his odd vision of his own death remains, I think, one of the sixties most interesting albums.
 
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ArthurLee

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Re: R.I.P. Arthur

pooldude said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKRhxgGaXM


Back around '83 I played a standing-room-only gig @ the Troubadour with my band Noizey Walker, on the bill with Odin, the young band that was later featured in the Decline of Western Civilization II movie.

During one of the intermissions, famed Troubadour owner Doug Weston came on stage to announce a surprise appearance by Arthur Lee, accompanied only by an acoustic guitarist & a conga player. The crowd went almost completely silent...I think I was almost the only person there who was excited to see him.

The Troubadour audience practically ignored Arthur, & then some even booed him for not being "Metal"...with most of the crowd being completely oblivious to who he was, & the importance of his old band Love...which had been one of the biggest draws on the Sunset Strip, only 15 years earlier.

568931.jpg


I remember thinking how fast times change, & how short a memory many rock fans have...& I felt down-rite sorry for this guy, who was one of my high school era heroes, now playing to an almost hostile crowd.

lovepromo.jpg

About the same time, I owned Visions Music, a guitar shop across the street from the Hollywood Post Office, on Selma & Gower. Bryan MacLean (who wrote Love's biggest hit "Alone Again Or") used to come in & buy guitar strings & various supplies. He looked really run down, somewhat of a drug casualty. One day he had to write a check, for a very small purchase, because the guy was low on cash. That’s when he pulled out his I.D., & of course I recognized his name.

Bryan brightened up noticeably when I told him how much I respected Love, since I was a kid in high school. Bryan told me how he was surviving primarily on his meager royalties from the ‘60s, & that he had turned to Christianity, & that he was trying to write with his kid sister Maria McKee, who had some success with Lone Justice in the ‘80s.

By the late ‘90s, Bryan was dead; he never really reconciled with Arthur. And of course, most people know that Arthur has had a lot of problems, both legal, physical, & mental.

Now Arthur is gone, sooner than he deserved. It’s not a very happy ending to a story that shined so brightly in the ‘60s.

love.jpg


Nice one PD. A fitting tribute to a great talent, sadly no longer with us.
Watching the 'Alone again Or' clip reminded me of the time in 2003 when Arthur toured Britain with 'Love' (Baby Lemonade) and did the whole of 'Forever Changes'. I was fortunate to see the show at Newcastle and it was fabulous. Arthur looked happy, relaxed and, yes, glowing. Ironically (and I think the clip bears this out) Arthur was reading the lyrics from an autocue because, as you know, the song was Macleans. It was somewhat bizarre to see him perform what, arguably was Love's most famous song like that.

A sad day. R.I.P. Mr Lee
 
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