Arthur Taylor Lee (born Arthur Porter Taylor; March 7, 1945 – August 3, 2006) was an American musician, singer and songwriter who rose to fame as the leader of the Los Angeles rock band Love. Love's 1967 album Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is part of the National Recording Registry.
Early life Lee was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 7, 1945, in John Gaston Hospital, to Agnes (née Porter), a school teacher, and Chester Taylor, a local jazz musician and cornet player. As an only child, Lee was known by the nickname "Po", short for Porter, and was looked after by additional family members so his mother could proceed with her teaching career. With his father being his first connection with a musician, Lee was fascinated by music at a young age. He would sing and hum along to blues musicians such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters on the radio. At the age of four, Lee made his debut on the stage at a Baptist church, reciting a small poem about a red telephone.
In the early 1950s, his parents separated, as his father "refused or neglected to provide for her", the divorce petition states. Lee remembered seeing his father only three times during his entire life. Subsequently, Lee and his mother packed their things and took a train to California, while his father was at work. Lee and his mother resided in Los Angeles permanently in 1952. In 1953, their divorce was granted and his mother married Clinton Lee, a successful construction worker, on April 23, 1955. Lee was formally adopted by Clinton Lee on June 6, 1960, legally acquiring his surname, after filing for an adoption notice in 1958. His mother was able to resume her teaching career, enabling the family to buy a new home in the West Adams area of South Central Los Angeles. The neighborhood was also home to Johnny Echols (future co-founder, lead guitarist, and vocalist of Love), who attended the same schools as Lee.
Lee attended Sixth Avenue Elementary School and excelled in athletics but was behind academically. Being known as "the toughest kid in the neighborhood", he was pressured into succeeding in school by his great-aunt, a former school principal, but showed interest in sports, music, reading, and animals. He later attended Mount Vernon Junior High, where his interest in music would soon outweigh his focus on sports.
Lee took lessons from a teacher in his first musical instrument, the accordion. He adapted to reading music and developed a good ear and natural musical intelligence. While he was never formally taught about musical theory and composition, he was able to mimic musicians from records and compose his own songs. Eventually he persuaded his parents to buy him an organ and harmonica. Graduating from Susan Miller Dorsey High School, Lee's musical ambitions found opportunities between his local community and classmates. As opposed to attending a college under a sports scholarship, he strived for a musical career. Echols influenced Arthur's plan to form a band, after seeing him perform "Johnny B. Goode" with a five-piece band at a school assembly.
Career Pre-Love His first known recording is from 1963. The Ninth Wave (Capitol Records 4980) was released by his first band, the instrumental outfit called The LAGs, a Booker T & The MG's type of unit which included Echols, Lee (organ), Allan Talbert (saxophone), and Roland Davis (drums).
As a songwriter, Lee composed the surf songs "White Caps" and "Ski Surfin' Sanctuary". "My Diary" is the first Lee composition that came near to being a hit. It was written when Arthur was a teenager, about his teenage sweetheart Anita Billings. Later it was the R&B singer Rosa Lee Brooks who performed and recorded it for Revis Records. This recording included Jimi Hendrix on electric guitar. In a 2005 interview, Lee stated that he was looking for a guitarist with a Curtis Mayfield–like feel, and Hendrix was recommended for the session by label owner Billy Revis.
Lee wrote "I've Been Tryin for Little Ray. "Luci Baines", a song about President Lyndon Johnson's daughter, was performed and recorded with Lee's new band, The American Four. He composed "Everybody Jerk" and "Slow Jerk" for Ronnie and the Pomona Casuals, a band that put out an LP on the Donna label featuring some vocals by Lee. These early recordings are very rare but have been collected on a 1997 bootleg CD. The American Four however have since been reissued as a 45 and are also available now on iTunes.
Love
Lee said when he first heard The Byrds he felt vindicated since he'd already been writing music that had a similar folk rock sound. In 1965, the Grass Roots, his folk rock unit, changed their name to Love because there was already a signed act called The Grass Roots.
Lee's early appearances were at clubs in Hollywood, including the Brave New World; Hullabaloo; Bido Lito's; and the Sea Witch. At Bido Lito's, a tiny hole-in-the-wall club located on a cul-de-sac known as Cosmo's Alley, Lee first showed his potential for excellence. The Bido Lito's audience was sometimes dotted with celebrities, including actor Sal Mineo, and rock stars Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix, who would go on to collaborate with Lee on future recording projects. Lee then got the opportunity to play the larger Whisky a Go Go on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, after which Love received a recording contract by Elektra Records. Love received a lot of air play in Los Angeles, and performed several times in 1967 at the Cheetah nightclub in Venice, California.
Love's music has been described as a mixture of psychedelic rock, folk-rock, baroque pop, Spanish-tinged pop, R&B, garage rock, and even protopunk. Lee has been regarded as "the first punk rocker" but wasn't flattered by the phrase as he thought the term punk meant "being somebody's bitch or something like that." Though Lee's vocals have garnered some comparisons to Johnny Mathis, his lyrics often dwell on matters dark and vexing, but often with a wry humor. The group's cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition "My Little Red Book" (first recorded by Manfred Mann for the soundtrack of What's New Pussycat?) received a thumbs-down from Bacharach: Love had altered the song's chord changes. Nonetheless, the record was a Southern California hit and won Lee and Love a spot on American Bandstand.
Love (1966) included their cover of "My Little Red Book". "Emotions", an instrumental track from the album, is used in the opening credits of the 1969 movie Medium Cool. Their second album, Da Capo (1966), featured just one song, "Revelation" on side two. The first side contained six individual songs, including their only single to achieve any success in the Billboard Top 40 chart: "7 and 7 Is". Da Capo has been described as Jazz-Rock (or Jazz Fusion with its inclusion of flute and saxophone.) Forever Changes (1967) followed, the album a centerpiece of the group's psychedelic-tinged sound, bolstered by David Angel's orchestral arrangements. Forever Changes sold moderately in its time (reaching No. 154 on the Billboard 200, and stayed on the chart for 10 weeks, without the benefit of a hit single), although it reached the top 30 in the UK. Nonetheless, its cult status grew.
After Forever Changes, the band managed to record one more non-album single ("Your Mind and We Belong Together" b/w "Laughing Stock") which was released in June 1968 and failed to chart. Love then dissolved due to drug and money issues, only to have Lee revive the group name shortly thereafter. The new Love featured a lineup consisting of Lee on vocals and guitar, Jay Donnellan on guitar, Frank Fayad on bass, and George Suranovich on drums despite a few tracks featuring The Crazy World of Arthur Brown drummer Drachen Theaker. Lee signed a record deal with Bob Krasnow's Blue Thumb label during this time, but without mentioning to Krasnow that he was technically still signed to Elektra Records. Lee had wanted out of his Elektra deal since 1966 (the year the self-titled debut was released).
Elektra founder Jac Holzman did not want to let Lee out of his contract as he admired his talents but he also did not want to keep an artist under contract who did not want to stay, so a deal was worked out that allowed Lee to record for Blue Thumb with Holzman getting his choice of ten of the resulting songs to fulfill the Elektra contract of a fourth album. That album would become Four Sail (1969), Lee's pun on his original title "For Sale". A mere three months after the release of Four Sail, Blue Thumb records released their Love album, Out Here, using remaining tracks from the sessions.
Out Here featured the same musicians as Four Sail with the addition of Gary Rowles, who played on one track. Lee felt that Donnellan was getting a little too egotistical for his tastes. The new lineup consisted of musicians who were not fans of Forever Changes, resulting in a harder-edged rock sound. During the initial Four Sail/Out Here sessions, Krasnow approached Lee about the possibility of rounding up the original members of Love. Krasnow felt there was some magic missing with the new line up. Lee obliged him, and started rehearsing and even recording some with original members Echols, Forssi, and Stuart (MacLean had turned him down).
Heroin proved to be too dominant in the lives of Echols and Forssi. Both men were constantly pawning off the rented equipment for drug money and were eventually let go yet again. Love also toured both Four Sail and Out Here for their first trip to Europe, where they were always more popular, and went on to do a nationally televised performance on Dutch television which also featured promotional videos for older songs from the Elektra years. Out Here managed to chart at No. 29 in the UK in May 1970.
The next album to appear from Love was False Start (1970) which continued on with the heavier sonic direction of acid rock, in addition to featuring elements of classic R&B. One new member was added to this incarnation of Love, a vocalist/guitarist named Nooney Rickett. The album's opening track, "The Everlasting First", features Jimi Hendrix on guitar.
Lee met Hendrix while in England, and they decided to record at Bob Krasnow's expense. For years there were rumors that Arthur and Jimi recorded an entire record together, but the truth surfaced in 2009 when an acetate from Blue Thumb made rounds and it was revealed that there was only a long jam session (titled "Jam" on the actual acetate, to accompany The Everlasting First and an early version of the Hendrix song "Ezy Rider"). According to legend, Arthur overheard Bob Krasnow telling someone that if the False Start album did not crack the top 10 he was going to release the band from its contract. Moreover, Arthur made Krasnow give him that in writing. The album did not even reach the top 200 on the Billboard charts.
In 1971, Lee was signed to Columbia Records and spent the better part of the summer recording; all of the songs were deemed unworthy of issue (the entire Columbia project, along with a handful of demos, was released for the first time in 2009 on Sundazed Music as "Love Lost").
Solo career
In July 1972, Lee released his first solo album, Vindicator, on A&M Records, featuring a new group of musicians also playing as the band Love. At one point in time they would use the name Bandaid, a name originally suggested by Jimi Hendrix for a briefly considered lineup of himself, Lee, and Steve Winwood. This album failed to chart. Lee recorded a second solo album in 1973 entitled Black Beauty for Buffalo Records, but the label folded before the album was released. Lee contributed the title track to the 1974 blaxploitation film Thomasine & Bushrod. Lee's next move was to credit the backing group for Black Beauty with the addition of guitarist John Sterling as a new Love for Reel to Real (1974).