DID YOU KNOW ?

Los Angeles, late 1960s. LOVE, already a well-known group from the Psychedelic Rock movement, then shared the poster for "Whisky À Go Go", a famous Sunset Strip club with THE DOORS, a local group which between 1966 and 1967 was used to of the first parts of the place.

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In 1966, LOVE became the first rock band to sign with Elektra Records, the label of a certain Jac Holzman. Holzman then places a lot of hope in the latter...

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The original band, a rarity for the time, was made up of two Métis musicians, leader-singer-composer Arthur Lee and guitarist Johnny Echols, as well as three whites, guitarist-singer-composer Bryan Maclean, bassist Ken Forssi and drummer Michael Stuart. Soon, LOVE's career was strewn with obstacles that seemed to announce its premature decline.

First of all, the group was banned from touring in several southern states on the grounds of racist motivations. The east coast was not really theirs either, and after some mediocre performances in New York, the group even managed the counter-feat of declining an appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, in the heart of 'Summer Of Love' , because of a falling out between Artur Lee and Lou Adler, organizer of the event and boss of the Dunhill label, whom Lee accused of having stolen the initial name of his group, The Grass Roots. Finally, it is problems related to drug consumption that will definitively seal the collaboration of the original members.

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It is this same Arthur Lee, who also seems to have been the companion of a certain Pamela Courson in the past, a young man with an eccentric look who, it seems, inspired Jimi Hendrix a few years later and whose biggest stars of the moment like Eric Clapton full of praise, who will advise Jac Holzman to go see the DOORS in concert at the Whiskey a Go Go sometime in 1966.

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Initially relatively unconvinced, Holzman eventually signed the DOORS to Elektra at the end of August of that year. Soon the posters announcing LOVE in concert will be replaced by new ones bearing the image of the DOORS.

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Everyone knows the rest of the story: the DOORS flew to glory while LOVE and its members never had the expected success, despite the release of "Forever Changes" in November 1967. Third and last album with the original line-up, composed like a real swan song by an Arthur Lee convinced of his imminent death, if nowadays we grant this opus a notorious importance on the Psychedelic Rock scene of the 1960s, it does not however, was not the case when it was released.

Indeed, the album in question did not meet with immediate success, reaching only 154th place on the charts. It was recorded, mixed and produced by the same sound engineer as the DOORS in the person of Bruce Botnick. The quality of "Forever Changes" would later be reconsidered by its presence in numerous "greatest albums of all time" rankings. (Go listen to it if you haven't already!)

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Arthur Lee, whose real name Arthur Taylor Porter died of leukemia on August 3, 2006, he was then 61 years old. During the last years of his life, Lee strove to keep LOVE's music and legacy alive on stage.

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To listen to the album "Forever Changes", it's HERE