1967 was a hell of a time to be making an album. If you wanted to win chart success, you had to compete with the likes of these:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
Their Satanic Majesties Request - Rolling Stones
Are You Experienced? - The Jimi Hendrix Experienced
Axis: Bold as Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits - Bob Dylan
Disraeli Gears - Cream
The Byrds' Greatest Hits - The Byrds
Younger Than Yesterday - The Byrds
Buffalo Springfield - Buffalo Springfield
The Doors - The Doors
The Who Sell Out - The Who
Something Else By The Kinks - The Kinks
Mr. Fantasy - Traffic
Days of Future Passed - The Moody Blues
Mellow Yellow - Donovan
Happy Together - The Turtles
So, I suppose, because of that, it should come as no real surprise that it was also a big year for ‘sleepers’ – albums that went relatively unnoticed, but later emerged as hugely important or influential.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Pink Floyd
The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground
The Grateful Dead - The Grateful Dead
Big Brother & the Holding Company- Big Brother and the Holding Company
Absolutely Free - The Mothers of Invention
Safe as Milk - Captain Beefheart
Odessey and Oracle – The Zombies (recorded In 1967, but released the next year).
And probably the ultimate sleeper album was Dylan & The Band's 'The Basement Tapes' also recorded in 1967.
This was also the year that Love released ‘Forever Changes’.
I bought this album when I was sixteen, long after it was released. It was bought purely on a whim, as I’d never heard of Love. I was into music in a very big way, Brighton was twelve miles away and it had a bewhildering array of secondhand record shops, so I used to spend every Saturday trawling the streets and spending every single penny I could get my hands on in them. My record collection was pretty large and most days I used to walk to school with a stack of albums to lend to mates. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get anyone interested in my big new find. This was special. It was important. People just had to hear this. They didn’t want to, though because, if I mentioned my Love album, their eyes would glaze over, thinking I’d flipped & was listening to some dodgy TV advertised K-Tel compilation made specially for middle class housewives!
I’ve owned, perhaps, six or seven copies and it’s probably been the most important record in my life so far. It really is special & everyone should listen to it properly at least once.
By 1967, Love gigs were a pretty regular event in Los Angeles, but hardly anywhere else. They’d released two albums – ‘Love’ and, earlier that year, ‘Da Capo’
On the Elektra label, they’d had a minor hit single in 1966 with Burt Bacharach's ‘My Little Red Book.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIe1B...eature=related
The first album, Love, was released in May 1966, heavily influenced by The Byrds and sold reasonably well, reaching 57 on the US album charts. That August, they released another single ‘7 and 7 Is’ which was to be their highest charting effort at number 33. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWkZn...eature=related This was later covered by Alice Cooper, Rush and Robert Plant, among others. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOw8d...eature=related
It came from ‘Da Capo’ a much more ambitious, but for me, less satisfying album than the first – probably due to the over-indulgent side long track ‘Revelation’.
With that, the band were on the verge of breaking up. However, they were still commited to producing a third album, and a crew of session musicians were lined up to back the two songwriters Arthur Lee and Brian MacLean. Neil Young was going to co-produce with Elektra’s house producer, Bruce Botnick. Two tracks were laid down like this, but then the rest of the band came to their senses & helped out to finish the album and put some overdubs on the existing tracks. Neil Young was long gone due to Buffalo Springfield commitments but apparently stayed long enough to carry out the arrangements on ‘The Daily Planet’ . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0ku7zVZ0U
The album sold quite well in the UK ( number 24) and pretty badly in the US (worse that number 150) and there was a minor hit single with ‘Alone Again Or’ – written by MacLean as ‘Alone Again’ and ‘got at’ by Arthur Lee! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tQspFesT3E
This was later covered by bands as diverse as
The Damned (on ‘Anything’) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6RqcEuxY_Q
Calexico http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o14hqYc96gE
and UFO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDKHG...eature=related
The band failed to capitalise on its success due to Lee’s reticence to perform outside LA – a crying shame. And, disappointed with the lack of success at home, they finally parted company. Arthur Lee carried on with the Love name for years afterwards, but never reached the perfection of this album.
So, what’s the album like?
Good question! – It’s got impenetrable song titles, cryptic lyrics, stop/start/direction changing melodies and rhythms, mariachi brass, strings with political commentary and themes verging on the suicidally depressing. Based on that description alone, most people would run a mile, and only a very few would be intrigued enough to take a listen!
It’s complex and ambitious, succeeding here, where the previous album failed. It also has quite a strong acoustic flavour with unamplified guitars often to the forefront of the mix. Lyrically, it’s a perfect mirror of the summer of 1967.
Vietnam:
‘A House Is Not a Motel’ – recounting a conversation with a veteran’s description of the war
The news today will be the movies for tomorrow.
And the water's turned to blood,
And if it's mixed with mud
You'll see it turn to greyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k16sCBq1cO8
‘The Red Telephone’ – dealing with the madness of a world in which a President can summon slaughter by picking up the phone.
Sitting on a hillside
Watching all the people die
I’ll feel much better on the other sidehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsphN4Q5TM
While talking about writing this song Arthur Lee said that he felt like he was going to die & this album would be his last statement. This is echoed in Greil Marcus' book 'Invisible Republic - Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes':
........The summer of love, all insisted, in their different ways, on the year 1967 as Millenium or Apocalypse, or both. The year "America fell apart", Newt Gingrich has said; "deserter's songs", a sceptic called the basement tapes in 1994, catching an echo of a few people holed up to wait out the end of the world.......
Carefree hippiedom:
‘The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This’
Summertime's here and look over there
Flowers everywhere in the morning,
In the morning .....La da da."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_IEaY_AVxU
Arthur Lee led a troubled life and was a control freak, but he created something really special with this album and enjoyed the experience of seeing it more widely appreciated when he toured just a few years ago. There’s a DVD of one of the gigs, which is essential (and in some ways it flows better than the original recording), if only for the most sublime use of strings and brass in the context of rock music. Try watching my favourite track from this, ‘Maybe the People Would Be the Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa32txV5nDk (It has the guitar solo that made me want to learn how to play), ‘Old Man’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ZNE7YQRKU , or ‘You Set the Scene’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Srbx...om=PL&index=53
The album was the subject of an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons, where it was voted the greatest album of all time! So it’s official. In fact it’s in the constitution!– you really need to hear it.
Arthur Lee: RIP
