Hippy legend Arthur Lee -
famous for his band Love -
Posted on 08/04/2006 1:44:10 AM PDT by lunarbicep
Arthur Lee, the eccentric singer/guitarist with influential 1960s rock band Love, has died in a Memphis hospital after a battle with leukaemia, his manager said on Friday. He was 61.
"His death comes as a shock to me because Arthur had the uncanny ability to bounce back from everything, and leukaemia was no exception," Mark Linn said in an email to Reuters. "He was confident that he would be back on stage by the fall."
Lee died on Thursday at about 5 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) at Methodist University Hospital with his wife Diane at his side, Linn added.
Lee, a Memphis native who referred to himself as "the first so-called black hippie," formed Love in Los Angeles in 1965, emerging from the same scene as groups like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors and the Mamas and Papas.
The first multiracial rock band of the psychedelic era, Love recorded three groundbreaking albums fusing traditional folk rock and blues with symphonic suites and early punk.
Bands as diverse as Led Zeppelin, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Siouxsie and the Banshees cited Love as an influence.
The band's self-titled debut yielded the hit single "My Little Red Book," written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. The 1967 follow-up, "Da Capo," was one of the first rock albums to feature a song, "Revelation," that took up an entire side.
A third release, 1968's "Forever Changes," which boasted adventurous horn and string arrangements, is considered Love's bold response to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's" album. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at No. 40 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
But Love, which rarely left Los Angeles, lost momentum as Lee hired new musicians and pursued a solo career. Various reunions amounted to little, and Lee's eccentricities landed him in a California prison for six years during the 1990s for firing a pistol into the air.
After his release in late 2001, Lee assembled a new version of Love and toured Europe and North America, often playing "Forever Changes" in its entirety.
Lee was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia this year. In May, facing certain death after three rounds of chemotherapy failed, he became the first adult in Tennessee to undergo a bone marrow transplant using stem cells from an umbilical cord, according to The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. Doctors said the procedure lifted his chances of survival only moderately, the newspaper said.
Several benefit concerts were held in Britain and the United States to help Lee with his medical bills. Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant headlined a benefit in New York in June.
A tip of the hat and a fond farewell...
RIP.
I always get Mr. Lee confused with Arthur Conley.
RIP Mr. Lee.
I've actually been to a Love "concert" back in the day. We all sat on the floor of what seems to me now might have been a gymnasium, looking up at them as they played. There were maybe 200 people there. They sounded just as good live as they did on their records, and had an amazing amount of energy on stage.
They did covers of Hey Joe (The Leaves) and My Little Black
Book (Bacharach-David; actually they may have been the first to do that song) and had a nice original called Alone Again Or, which was covered by British punkers The Damned.
"And I will be along again tonight with you..."
(oops, ALONE again tonight with you)
correction: a friend of mine saw my post on this thread and
just emailed me: "the Leaves covered "Hey Joe",
not the other way around. "Hey Joe" was played by both
the Byrds & Love before the Leaves picked up on it.
They are the only act to score a Top 40 hit w/"Hey
Joe".
And I confuse him with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
and "SEVEN AND SEVEN IS". Later covered by the Ramones on their all cover album, "Acid Eaters".
I read somewhere that none of those bands wrote Hey Joe and that strangely, the Sufaris were the first band (who also didn't write it) to record it.
Jimi Hendrix and LA based The Music Machine both did slow versions of Hey Joe, the others I've heard are all fast.
rip ping
Rush also did a cover of seven is seven on there last album in 2004.
some Bandstand clips:
Love - Little red book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS51SbZ0ngk
Love - A Message To Pretty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpLEAPGowNY
bttt
I've listened to Forever Changes several times now. Don't know how I missed it before this. I was around in 1968.
Just damn! I was listening to "My Little Red Book" just the other day. And I love "7 & 7 Is". Farewell Arthur, you'll be missed.
Alone Again Or has also been covered by Calexico - currently the best live band in the US.
Real dialogue from Arthur Lee's band to Arthur at LAX last year: "Arthur, they have heroin in Europe. Just get on the plane."
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