Love's Arthur Lee Passes On

'Twas 1967. After two albums of garage-ish rock and hippie experimentation and with generous help from his record company, Arthur Lee (allmusic bio) and his band Love made a classic album, Forever Changes, that still makes the all-time best lists.

Arthur (Wiki bio) came home to the place of his birth, the great music town of Memphis, Tennessee, for his final months and passed away recently despite all the treatments our world-class medical center provided him.

Here's the Memphis Commercial Appeal's article about him and the best national obit I've found so far, the Washington Post's.

I've collected some representative videos of this self-described "first black hippie" and his always inter-racial bands, doing some of the most lyrical and magical music of the Sixties. First up is the 1968 psychedelic promo video for "Your Mind and We Belong Together," worth watching if only for the shots of the hippie girl in a negligée and the guitar solo outro:



Next up is my favorite early recording, "Seven & Seven Is," which I think of as "Ooop Bip Bip."



After that, we've got a fan's still video tribute, included here because it uses as its soundtrack the full recording of perhaps my favorite Love song, "A House Is Not A Motel," with its raga-inspired guitar breaks, haunting lyrics, and awesome two-guitar solo outro:



Finally, perhaps Love's masterpiece, the sweet, lyrical, ultra-human "Alone Again Or," performed live with full string and Mexicali horn sections. Unlike the first time I linked to a video of this performance, this video has the modern live version of "A House Is Not A Motel" tacked on to it. I don't mind, and you won't either. Get high, listen up, and enjoy paradise on earth for a few minutes. This is real hippie music; and that's how it used to work.



Arthur, I never got to know you, but I did think of you from time to time and in fact talked to Neil about getting you a gig at his music room last year. Had I known you had moved back to town, I would have tried to find you; and I would have pursued that gig for you, man. Thanks for the great music anyway....

UPDATE: Slate's music critic Jody Rosen weighed in with a good remembrance; and the staff at AllMusic Guide has produced a wonderful joint write-up of Love's albums and songs, with audio clips.

UPDATE: Arthur's regular obituary finally appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal on August 9, 2006, a day after his memorial service, which must have been for just family and friends personally made aware.

ARTHUR LEE, 61, of Memphis, musician, died August 3, 2006 at Methodist University Hospital. A Memorial service was held on Tuesday, August 8, at N.H. Owens & Son Funeral Home. Burial in Forrest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, CA. He leaves his wife, Diane Skorman Lee and many cousins and friends.

You can view his guest book, which was open for signing through September 9, 2006.

UPDATE: The Memphis Flyer has an informative cover story on Arthur, with coverage of his last days and his local funeral.

UPDATE: I tracked a link to here back to a valuable and interesting reminiscence, "Requiem for a Heavyweight," by Stuart Goldman, a music critic and screenwriter who knew Arthur well.

UPDATE: Bonus video: "A House Is Not A Motel" live. Shows how well Arthur could do in the 21st century. I like the original guitar intro better and the original lyrics (which you can hear by clicking earlier in this post); but the outro is part and parcel of the excellence of the recorded version and shows what fine musicians Arthur could put around himself whenever he wanted to do it.