Every once in awhile a music label has a great idea. Someone at Collector’s Choice Music had the wonderful inspiration of re-releasing the Love albums featuring Arthur Lee that were recorded for the Blue Thumb label in 1969-1970. Both had been out of print for decades.
Arthur Lee and his group Love have rightfully gone down in music history as being at the creative center of the American psychedelic movement. Psychedelic, however, has always been too simple a definition of Love’s music and legacy. Their self titled first album (1966) was an exploration of the sounds of the Beatles and Byrds. De Capo (1967) took the group in a more orchestral direction with flutes and saxophone. Arthur Lee’s masterpiece, Forever Changes (1967) is one of the classic psychedelic releases of the 1960’s.
As the sixties drew to a close Arthur Lee fired all Love’s group members and hired guitarist Jay Donnellan, bass player Frank Fayad and drummer George Suranovich as replacements. This new version of Love signed a contract with the Blue Thumb label and quickly recorded over thirty songs. An albums worth of material was given to the Electra label to fulfill their contractual obligations. This resulted in the release of Full Sail.
Love’s first Blue Thumb release was the double LP, Out Of Here. It is an album of creative individual parts which did not fit together. Arthur Lee & Love created folk rock, country, hard rock, some psychedelic tunes and even a protest song. They were spread out in no particular order over the course of the albums original two records. Out Here may have been a jumble at times but it was and remains always interesting.
“I’ll Pray For You” starts out very sparse and morphs into a catchy tune with nice harmonies. “Abalony” is a tongue in cheek country song complete with a steel guitar underpinning the vocals. “Signed D.C.” and “I’m Down” are both back to basics psychedelic tunes that are representative of the traditional Love sound. “Willow Willow” creates a nice pop groove.
Article comments