| Just because I tell you to shut up doesn't mean I don't love you
My chance encounter with Arthur Lee
By Andy Smith
 The late Arthur Lee |
On August 3, 2006, Arthur Lee died at the age of 61 from acute myeloid leukemia. In 2003, I wrote the following memoir of my one personal encounter with Lee for a website based in Malta, the small Mediterranean island nation, but with his recent passing, the editors at PCP thought it would be a fitting tribute to the man and his music if I dusted the piece off, updated it and re-published it. -Andy Smith
I. Legend
In the circuitous history of rock music, there are numerous people undeservedly known as "legends." The term has become almost meaningless in its triteness and inaccurate application when it seems that every gray-haired, pony-tailed, black t-shirted rocker who had a minor hit once upon a couple of decades ago is described as "legendary" by the concert promoters trying to milk a few dollars out of some gullible fan.
In my estimation, to be a legendary musician, you have to meet certain criteria. First, you have to have been a trailblazing part of a truly influential scene. Maybe it was Memphis in the late 50's. Or Liverpool in the early 60's. Or London in the mid-60's or late 70's. Or Manchester in the late 80's. Or New York in the late 70's. Or San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid to late 60's.
Next, you have to have created music that has stood the test of time. Yes, this is a cliché, but it is also impossible to predict because no one knows in advance what will last. Who would have guessed that what were considered to be throwaway novelty songs such as "Surfin' Bird" and "Wooly Bully" would be arguably more influential on future bands than such "serious" artists as Rick Wakeman or Rush.
Third, it helps if you are, to put it politely, eccentric. It just makes the story that much more interesting. It also helps if you are a survivor of some seriously heavy setbacks, which is why I'll take Keith Richards' autobiography over Mick Jagger's any time. And I'll take Johnny Rotten or Steve Jones over Glen Matlock, too.
So if you buy this equation (trailblazer + lasting influence + eccentric, unique character who has withstood serious tribulations = legend) then you have the exact description of Arthur Lee.
II. The Introduction
For the uninitiated, Arthur Lee was truly one of the seminal figures of LA's mid-60's psychedelic rock scene. After the Byrds graduated to international stardom on the heels of 1965's hit "Mr. Tambourine Man," his band, Love, was the darling of the city's famed Sunset Strip scene. Lee was the primary singer, songwriter, and undisputed bandleader, and even though he was just 20 when the band formed, he was already a veteran songwriter and producer including sessions working with a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix.
From the start, Love traversed the darker side of the emotional landscape and played a style that took the Byrds' guitar jangle but blended it with an emotive power that ran counter to the peace and love vibe that has come to stereotype that era. Also at a time when so many bands were just trying to get a handle on the whole three chord, 1-4-5 song structure, Love experimented with styles integrating flamenco rhythms and Latin horns into its rock style.
Visually, they were unique as well. Both Lee and guitar player John Echols were of mixed race, so they were one of the few integrated bands around LA's virtually all-white rock scene. In their cover photos, they looked genuinely menacing and weird. Lee's trademark look was to wear combat boots with one laced up and the other unlaced. In their most famous shot, Lee wore sunglasses with one red lens and one blue lens while also having a lit cigarette subtly sticking out of his ear. In another, Lee appears in a bathing suit in the middle of a forest, while all of the others are fully clothed.
They had a reputation for being cantankerous and difficult. They refused to tour and almost never even ventured outside of Los Angeles to play. Lee earned a reputation for being one of the first people in town to be constantly tripping on LSD and rumors of harder drug use circled around the band; this all being during a time when most of the sub-culture had barely discovered pot.
These rumors were only fomented by the cryptic song "Signed DC" on their self-titled debut record (released in 1966), which was allegedly directed at their original drummer, Don Conka, whose heroin use led to his dismissal from the group. Elsewhere on Love were songs that ran counter to the rest of the world's image of LA as the land of sun, surf and fun, fun, fun. There were stark images of death: "now you wake up in the morning/find your poor self dead" from "Can't Explain," nuclear war: the song "Mushroom Clouds" and drug use: "Signed DC," the phrase "shoe box behind the icebox" from "You I'll Be Following, and the last verse from "My Flash On You": "Don't try to force your smuggled drugs my way/ 'Cause baby, I cleansed my soul and I say that's the way it's gonna stay/ But you can put me down, all around, on the ground, anyway you choose/ Get your kicks with your fix, but this time I know it's you who lose"
Of course, people outside of LA also seemed to forget the explosive Watts race riot in 1965, as well as the dark side of the West Coast prosperity that marked the lives of more of its residents than many would admit. After all, even the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was a victim of child abuse and later financial swindling at the hands of his tyrannical father, and the sunny images in his songs merely masked the deep psychological trauma that would manifest itself around the same time that Love was packing the clubs on the Sunset Strip. A giant sandbox in the living room, anyone?
But with the backing of Elektra Records, who would soon score major success with their other LA band, The Doors, Love managed to gain some stardom in the rest of the country. Their rather skewed version of Burt Bacharach's "Little Red Book" became a minor hit. But in true enigmatic fashion, they refused to tour and never capitalized on the flirtation with Top 40 success.
In the summer of 1966, the band released "Seven and Seven Is" which became their biggest hit single despite being uncompromisingly manic with mad, hallucinogenic lyrics such as: "If I don't start cryin' it's because that I have got no eyes/ My father's in the fireplace and my dog lies hypnotized/ Through a crack of light I was unable to find my way/ Trapped inside a night but I'm a day and I go Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!"
In early 1967, Love released Da Capo, which consisted of one album side of six brilliant slices of psychedelic garage pop along with sophisticated touches of flamenco and delicate ballads. Side two consisted entirely of "Revelation," a 19 minute long epic that showed a heavy LSD influence.
The summer of 1967 is remembered nostalgically as the "Summer of Love" although many people who were in San Francisco and Los Angeles have written that that summer, which coincided with the coverage of the west coast scenes by national media outlets, was really the beginning of the end of the Age of Aquarius rather than its zenith. Meanwhile back in LA, 22 year-old Arthur Lee was haunted by visions of his own seemingly impending death, and his band continued its downward spiral into heroin addiction and disillusionment.
When an invitation to play at the historic Monterey Pop Festival came their way, Love inexplicably, though predictably, declined to appear at that seminal event and missed probably the best opportunity of its career for mass exposure. By this time, their reputation for sullenness and hostility had produced a bevy of wild rumors, and a member of Janis Joplin's band Big Brother and the Holding Company had remarked that they should be called "Hate" instead of Love.
Back at Elektra Records, the Doors had usurped Love's position as the label's favorite act as "Light My Fire" climbed the charts, and Jim Morrison took Lee's spot as the star of the Sunset Strip. So sequestered in "The Castle," the band's residence high up in the Hollywood Hills (which had once been occupied by monster movie star and addict Bela Lugosi) with his band on the verge of breaking up, Lee sat down to compose the record for which he would be most fondly remembered.
 Love in 1966 |
III. The Masterpiece
Although at the time of its release in November 1967, Forever Changes was overshadowed by such contemporary records as The Doors, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, and of course Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, it remains easily one of the best records of the 60's and regularly appears in the top echelon of various compilation lists of the greatest rock records of all time. I have been a Love fan since the 80's when I first heard them as a teenager, but only since 2003, when I bought the deluxe reissued CD version of Forever Changes, have I really understood why this record has such a colossal reputation.
Even almost 40 years since its release, from start to finish, Forever Changes spins a lilting, but bittersweet web of tragic, fragile beauty with overtones of disillusionment and despair. It is also perfectly evocative of Los Angeles; a place where the smog taints the sunlight and the glare on a sunny day becomes blinding. And though every song is stellar, there a few that deserve a closer look.
The opening track, "Alone Again Or," is one of two on the record composed by Bryan Maclean, Love's other songwriter. Maclean's contributions were often overshadowed by Lee's charismatic presence, but "Alone Again Or" has since become the band's best known composition. Of course, in the final mix, Lee's harmony vocal was mixed higher than Maclean's, but in hindsight, that was probably a good thing. The song itself is breathtakingly beautiful with its delicately finger-picked acoustic guitar and strings and mariachi horns enhancing the vocal dynamics.
The second track, "A House is Not a Motel," maintains the almost flamenco feel of "Alone Again Or" but opts for a dark E-minor key and shuffling tempo. The feeling is unsettling like the gathering of the black clouds of a sudden thunderstorm. Lee's opening lyric drives this sense of impending doom home "At my house I've got no shackles/ You can come and look if you want to" as if to say "Don't be afraid of me." But why would he have to tell us this if there wasn't something dangerous about him?
Lee was sometimes derided, even within his own band, for being too abstract in his lyrics, but though they may not always seem to be literal, there is plenty of vivid imagery and hidden meaning to find between the lines. After the middle 8 break, where we get a snarling guitar lead, the song repeats the intro and sets up the final verse which contains a prime example: "By the time that I'm done singing the bells from schools of walls will be ringing/More confusion blood transfusions/The news of today will be the movies of tomorrow/ And the water's turned to blood and if you don't think so, go turn on your tub/And if it's mixed with mud you'll see it turn to gray/And you can call my name/I HEAR YOU CALLING MY NAME!" While the lyric doesn't clearly spell out Lee's meaning, the symbols of anguish and death are evident (the tolling of bells, news bulletins becoming movies, blood in the bathtub). Is he talking about suicide, overdose, or perhaps the collective pain of his generation? We don’t know, but we feel it as the song melts into a frenzied double-guitar feedback freak-out.
The sixth track on Forever Changes, "The Red Telephone," follows three wistful but essentially pleasant songs with more disturbing imagery. First of all, the title of the song is a puzzle and has been described as referring both literally to the telephone at the Castle and to the telephone in the White House that supposedly would be used to begin the seemingly inevitable nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The song opens with Lee singing the cryptic lines "Sitting on the hillside/Watching all the people die" signaling a return to the theme of harrowing introspection, and the rest of the lyrics follow the predominant theme of resignation.
The song is colored musically with a harpsichord, simple string parts, and the ever-present twelve-string acoustic guitar. The fade out consists of a double vocal track chanting "They're locking them up today/They're throwing away the key/I wonder who it will be tomorrow/You or me?" which leads into Lee saying in a voice dripping with sarcasm "We're all normal, and we want our freedom." And at the very end as the music fades you can hear various voices under the guitar. One like a petulant child says "I want my freedom" and is followed by the voice of an almost grotesquely stereotypical minstrel show performer saying "All of God's chilluns gotta have their freedom." This pounds the bitterness and contempt home with a sledgehammer but still amidst such soft and seemingly peaceful music with Lee's light, plaintive voice.
But then as though the clouds of paranoia lift for a moment, the acoustic guitar strums of the wonderfully titled "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale" summon the record's most buoyant songs. Backed by a terrific sunny shuffling tune tempo and a terrific, almost Herb Alpert-esque horn arrangement, Lee's sings an ode to the Sunset Strip, specifically the block between Clark and Hilldale streets where the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go club sits. The song's most delightful moment comes midway through as Lee's scat-sings along with the trumpet solo parroting the notes and inflections. John Echols adds some lovely snaky guitar leads and the whole thing comes to a climax. Imagine driving in a convertible car on a lovely sunny day, and this song is your soundtrack.
Of course, almost as soon as that fleeting moment of satisfaction ends, Lee's opening lines to "Live and Let Live" get us back to the darkness, even against the backdrop of a pleasant major key tune: "Oh the snot has caked against my pants/It has turned into crystal/There's a bluebird sitting on a branch/I guess I'll take my pistol/I've got it in my hand/Because he's on my land." The image being that Lee with his snot caked trousers is planning to shoot the symbolic "bluebird of happiness" for trespassing on his misery.
We go back and forth between pleasantry and alienation for the next two songs as well. For "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This," Lee uses an ice cream salesman as a narrator of a lovely summer scene, but the song is mostly instrumental featuring both the horns and strings prominently. But then, using a production trick, the song seems to collapse it the end, almost akin to a film disintegrating. Then we go into "Bummer in the Summer," which is a classic broken romance song. In the lyrics though, Lee is no sad sap and maintains his fierce bravado and pride.
The record culminates with "You Set the Scene," a message of self-empowerment which summarizes the record. It is as if Lee has told these tales to share his experience, and the last song provides the lesson and the conclusion. The key lyric comes right after the first main musical passage changes into the second, about 2:30 in the song: "This is the time and life that I am living/And I'll face each day with a smile/For the time that I've been given's such a little while/And the things that I must do consist of more than style/There are places that I am going." Lee continues with lyrics that seem to urge his contemporaries in the counter-culture to look at themselves more closely and assess relevant matters rather than become cattle in the herd. Then the song fades out with alternating trumpet and string fanfares providing Forever Changes with a soaring and satisfying conclusion.
Despite the brilliance and levity of Forever Changes, when it was released it was commercially overlooked. America seemed to prefer the less complicated psychedelic visions of less complicated bands, like The Monkees, although in England the record made it to #24 on the album charts. Of course, none of this really mattered because by the summer of 1968, Love in its classic incarnation no longer existed.
IV. The Aftermath
Arthur Lee continued to front various bands called Love off and on sporadically through the rest of the 60's and into the 70's, but both his erratic behavior and growing public indifference kept him from making any sort of a substantive comeback. He made sporadic appearances around LA, while new rumors of his reckless and unpredictable ways made the rounds.
Fortunes would have seemed to improve during the mid 80's when the original Love records were re-issued, and a new generation of listeners discovered Love as the essential psychedelic band. There was also the short-lived "Paisley Underground" movement in LA during this time, which featured bands such as Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade and the Long Ryders, who wore their 60's influences proudly on their sleeves. It was actually during this time that I first started listening to Love and wondering about the mysterious looking dude with the cigarette stuck in his ear.
Lee did begin to make more frequent public appearances as the 80's became the 90's, and he released a record in France in 1992. He also began to tour in the early 90's, primarily in Europe, as younger fans became enraptured with his music and untamed reputation.
V. In the Flesh
In May 1995, in truly random circumstances, my path crossed Arthur Lee's, and I got a chance to see up close his legendary line between genius and self-destructive volatility.
I was visiting San Francisco with my wife, and we had gone to the Bottom of the Hill music club in the Potrero Hill neighborhood along with the woman in whose apartment we were staying. We were planning to see Dieselhed, a well-regarded local band whom I had seen in Austin, and whose members were friends with one of my former college roommates who also was living in San Francisco and was going to meet us at the show. I can't recall if we knew in advance that Arthur Lee also happened to be on the bill, but when I found out, I was both excited and a bit skeptical about what sort of show Lee would put on.
The Bottom of the Hill is a venerable institution among San Francisco's music fans. The club is the regular starting point for many rising bands. The room is mall, holding only 200 people or so, but it has a great atmosphere. Also, because it is in a less than convenient location in the city, the people who go there are there to hear music, so the crowds are attentive and supportive. The layout of the club is the main room in front with a small back room with a couple of pool tables and an outdoor patio in back. The facilities for bands are non-existent. There is no backstage area (although this may have changed in the few years since I have been there), so the musicians mingle with the patrons.
So after watching Dieselhed's set, my wife, our friend, and I adjourned to the crowded patio to get some fresh air and wait to see Arthur Lee. Little did we know that when we sat down at a seemingly empty table, the solitary figure occupying a seat on the other side was none other than the man himself.
He looked cool as hell! His face was weathered like you would expect a man of 50 to look but still handsome and hip. He was dressed in a sort of faded Hendrix style with a bowler hat and bandanna and paisley shirt and hip jacket. All of his clothes looked lived in, as if this was the way the man dressed all the time. We sat down. Then I looked over and noticed him and gave him a friendly nod and "hello."
But he was in absolutely no mood to socialize! He was obviously irritated and agitated that there was no backstage area and that he had to sit in the middle of a crowd to prepare for a show. He was steaming mad rummaging through his belongings set out on the table before him looking for his missing harmonica. After a short period when my wife and our friend began talking he roared at us:
"Excuse me. People. Look, I love you very much but please shut the fuck up! My God. Just shut the fuck up! Now I got a show to do and I can't find my harmonica, and I'm telling you that I love you but for God's sake just shut the fuck up!"
We were all rather stunned. Then he pointed at our friend and said, "And put a ball and muzzle on that one. I mean just shut the fuck up! And I love you people I really do."
Now my wife is not one to take treatment like this from anyone, especially from someone who is supposed to be a legend but is playing in a small club for a $5 cover charge. So she fired right back at him:
"Look mister, I'm sorry you can't find your harmonica, but we have just as much right to sit here as you do, and I am going to talk to my friend whether you like it or not. And you don't need to be so nasty."
Lee actually seemed to be assuaged by her response. He was still bothered by our presence and cursed us a couple more times but less virulently, and then he reached into his bag and pulled out a CD and handed it to my wife and said, "I just want you to have this to let you know that I love all you people, but just please shut the fuck up while I'm trying to find my harmonica." Then he got up and walked away.
I looked at the CD. It was a tribute to Love with a bunch of indie bands playing versions of Love songs. Later when I listened to it, I realized that it was really pretty terrible with only a couple of decent performances, and also thought that it was sad that Lee was handing out other people's versions of his music instead of something of his own.
Then Lee took the stage and the true tragicomedic fiasco began. The band playing behind him seemed under rehearsed and ill-prepared, but rather than let them work out the kinks during the set, Lee fired all of them in the middle of the second song. He just stopped it and told them all to leave the stage. Chaos ensued as soon they took apart their instruments and stormed off-stage. There was some arguing and a lot of booing from the crowd, which led to Lee saying a couple of things back. Then now playing solo, Lee tried to play a version of "Alone Again Or" but most of the crowd had already left, and many who remained were now heckling him. Still he soldiered on through "Signed DC" but with no backing band, he was soon adrift for material. His voice sounded marvelous but he had quickly become the most disliked man in the room, and the crowd felt no reverence for him. Boos and derision rained down on him, and after trying to limp through another song or two with volunteers from the crowd, in a flash, it was over and Lee was gone into the foggy, chilly San Francisco night with his demons clearly hot on his trail.
VI. Purgatory
Later that same year, Lee was accused of attempting to set his ex-girlfriend's apartment on fire. Then the next year, his notorious temper nearly put a permanent end to his career.
After an argument with a neighbor in Los Angeles, Lee reportedly fired a gun into the air. He was arrested and later convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm, both felony offenses. Because Lee had had earlier convictions, assorted drug charges, two alleged arson incidents, and he had apparently been driving without insurance since 1963, he became subject to California's draconian "three strikes" law in which people who are guilty of three even minor offenses are sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Lee received eight to twelve years. One can guess that Lee had been his usual defiant self in front of the police and judge and took his punishment with stoicism, even with what Lee has described as incompetent legal representation (about his attorney at the trial, Lee said "As far as I'm concerned, he should have died in his daddy's dick"). At the time, it seemed to be the last, sad chapter in the career of this brilliant artist and Lee was sent to the ironically named Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California.
VII. The Genius Rides Again
But fortunately, fate gave us a chance to see Lee have a triumphant return.
First in 2000, Rhino Records re-released an expanded version of Forever Changes, reminding people of both it and its creator's brilliance. Then in December 2001, Lee was released from prison after serving six years. A federal appeals court had reversed his illegal firearm possession conviction on the grounds that the prosecutor had been guilty of misconduct and he had already served enough time for the reckless discharge charge.
Prior to his conviction, Lee had hooked up with the terrific LA pop-rock band Baby Lemonade, and they became his new backing band (why they weren't with him at the Bottom of the Hill that night I don't know). Since an actual Love reunion was no longer possible as both Brian Maclean and bassist Ken Forssi had died in 1998 and John Echols was incognito, upon his release from prison, once again Baby Lemonade joined Lee and began performing under the name Arthur Lee and Love.
There was then a great resurgence in interest in Lee's story, and he and the new version of Love toured extensively in Europe, where they still had a throng of devoted fans who have creates websites and fanzines devoted to Love in several countries and languages. The band performed at the Glastonbury Festival, and Lee received a "Living Legend Award" at the 2004 NME Awards.
An even more remarkable addition to this story came in May 2004 at a show at LA's Knitting Factory when for the first time in almost forty years, Lee was joined on stage by not only the long-absent guitarist John Echols but also by the band's original drummer Don Conka, the supposed subject of "Signed DC" who many fans thought had overdosed and died after he had been replaced during the first album's recording session.
But unfortunately, the heady times ended up being short-lived. After Echols continued to tour with Lee and the rest of the new version of Love, word suddenly arrived not long after that Lee had essentially been fired from his own band for increasingly erratic behavior. At the time, it sounded as though Arthur was just back to his old contrarian ways, but soon after, it was revealed that he was gravely ill with a particularly nasty form of leukemia. Benefit concerts featuring the likes of Robert Plant were held to offset his massive medical expenses and provided fitting final tributes to the man whose music had been so influential if often overlooked.
In the rear-view mirror, it is now fitting to remember those lines from "You Set the Scene" as a fitting epitaph for Arthur Lee:
"This is the time and life that I am living/And I'll face each day with a smile/For the time that I've been given's such a little while/And the things that I must do consist of more than style/There are places that I am going."
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