Speaking of the Royal Court of Arthur, one of rock's most underrated bands (and there have been a surprisingly large number) is Arthur Lee's LOVE. LOVE made some of the most unique and best records of the sixties. Under Arthur Lee's leadership, LOVE covered punk, psychedelia and acoustic music all with equal enthusiasm and grace.

Arthur Lee (born Arthur Taylor Porter, Memphis, 3/7/45; some sources say 1944) formed LOVE in 1965 with himself (lead vocals, harmonica, occasional guitar/bass/piano/drums) and Bryan Maclean (rhythm guitar, occasional lead vocals; also half-brother of Lone Justice's Maria McKee)... LOVE's first LP, 1966's LOVE, was a psychedelic-punk masterpiece. Influenced by the folk-rock sound of west coast groups like the Byrds (Love was based in Los Angeles), the album tore through manic rave-ups, waded through scary blues-harp dirges, introduced hallucinogenic instrumentals and managed to sound like the Byrds, the Kinks and the Yardbirds, while maintaining a unique style accented by Arthur's empassioned vocals. The album also included LOVE's first and biggest hit, "My Little Red Book" (a moody, alienated deconstruction of a minor Bacharach/David tune which was a huge West Coast hit and peaked at #52 nationwide). Along with the Byrd's Fifth Dimension, this LP was a major influence on Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, who would record psychedelia's greatest album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in early 1967. The album also featured a version of the folk song, "Hey Joe" which was later to be recorded by the Byrds and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

The second album, Da Capo from late 1966, showed the group ahead of its time, its sound already mushrooming from the ideas put forth on the debut album. The six songs on side one were advancements over what most everyone else in music was doing. The most famous song from side one of Da Capo, of course, is "7 and 7 Is." With a chord pattern light years ahead of its time and a fuzzy, processed manic guitar crunch unlike anything heard before, it is one of the craziest and most shocking singles from the sixties, and it could not betray any description it could be given. Side two of the LP was a side-long jam called "Revelation," often thought to be one of LOVE's absolute greatest achievements. One listen to the LP and you?ll wonder why it isn't remembered more widely as one of the decade's highpoints.

LOVE's next album is remembered a little more as the classic it is: 1967's Forever Changes. A more gentle acoustic sound was leavened with startlingly loud lead guitars and string sections. Arthur Lee's songwriting reached its peak on this album, and the album is every bit as necessary as Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn or Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland. Forever Changes's unique spark is impossible to deny. It was recently voted #11 in Mojo magazine's critics and listeners polls of the top albums of all time.

The line-up that produced these LP's recorded one last single: Your Mind and We Belong Together? b/w Laughing Stock that just may be rock and roll's greatest 45. The former is a (very) miniature suite of sorts, featuring one of the greatest guitar solos recorded by anyone, anywhere. After the failure of this single to sell, Arthur broke the band up and made a "new" LOVE (the first of many).

The reconstituted LOVE signed with Blue Thumb, but still owed Elektra one final album; they cut 27 tracks in a makeshift studio built in a warehouse. Elektra got first pick of the tracks, and released 10 of them as Four Sail in August, 1968 (which eschewed the acoustic majesty of Forever Changes in favor of the almighty electric guitar, and showed that Arthur Lee, addled by drugs though he may have been, was still a leader of rock vision). Blue Thumb released the remaining 17 as the double album Out Here only four months later.

Noony Ricket (harmony vocals and rhythm guitar) joined for the next album, False Start. Lee released a solo album, Vindicator, in 1972; this was to have been followed by Black Beauty the following year, but the record company folded and it was never officially released. Lee revived the LOVE name for Reel To Real in 1974, and continued to tour as Arthur Lee and LOVE (usually backed by the L.A. band Baby Lemonade) until his incarceration.

Arthur's last release was a single in 1994 on Distortions Records Midnight Sun / Girl On Fire that finds Arthur still empassioned about his music and playing great. A new song was backed with a song from a legendary unreleased LP recorded with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi does in fact appear on a couple songs from LOVE's album False Start--and Jimi's first recorded moment ever was on an early Arthur Lee session in 1965 (in 1965, a Lee composition called "My Diary" was recorded by Rosa Lee Brooks. The song featured the guitar talents of then unknown Jimi Hendrix. A friendship was formed between Lee and Hendrix and it culminated in the latter's blistering guitar workout on LOVE's False Start album.

1996 : After a lifetime of mishaps and missed opportunities, the legendary Arthur Lee of Love has been sentenced to eight years [other sources say twelve years] imprisonment for illegal possession of a firearm. Lee was touring Europe only three months ago and returned to stand trial on charges brought against him after police were called to his Van Nuys apartment last autumn by a neighbour.

The neighbour claimed he'd asked Lee to turn down his stereo. Whereupon the singer emerged brandishing a handgun and firing shots in the air. A friend who was with Lee, a fan from New Zealand named Doug Thomas, told police he had shot the gun, but there was a witness to say otherwise. The arrest followed an incident earlier in 1995 when Lee broke into an ex-girlfriend's apartment and allegedly attempted to torch it. On that occasion he was bailed out by Rhino Records, who'd just released a double-CD anthology of Love's greatest tracks.

The severity of the sentence is due to the stringent "three strikes and you're out" ruling in California state law. As a convicted felon -- he is thought to have done time on drugs charges in the '80s -- Arthur was sentenced to jail almost automatically. There is some suggestion that he was ill-advised not to settle for a plea bargain rather than go to trial. He will be held in a detention centre for the rest of the year before his transfer to a state prison. So it is unlikely we will hear anything else from him for awhile. Some of the lines from Your Friend and Mine--Neil's Song from Four Sail come to mind : "You don?t do nothin', and you land in jail / Farewell, farewell, farewell my friend..."

Waiting for better times, please find a reedition of FIVE STRING SERENADE, the very last Arthur LEE's LP. Originally released in 1993, on New Rose Records, this a musical document not to miss !