Arthur Lee (1945-2006)

In the summer of 2002, I was walking around Madrid where I then lived when I saw a poster pasted on a wall. In bright colours it announced that Arthur Lee + Love were playing. I didn't think it could be possible; Arthur Lee was still in prison and Love hadn't played together for thirty years. It was probably some dodgy tribute band. But it turned out that the Californian authorities had kindly released Lee from prison and that he was touring with a young LA band. I thought I'd go along, more to see one of my idols in the flesh than in the expectation of a decent gig. As the time neared for the concert, my excitement mounted - I was actually going to be in the same room as Arthur Lee. And probably few others would turn up, so I'd be close to him. I just hoped it wouldn't be too sad to see the great Arthur Lee broken by drugs, madness, and prison.
As it was, there were five or six hundred cool young Madridilenos there, as eager as I was to see Arthur Lee. And on he walked, in a pale green suit and trilby, a tall, impossibly cool black man dominating the stage. Any doubts about the gig soon disappeared. The band kicked into the thumping bass and drums of My Little Red Book, the great garage song of the 60s. Arthur Lee was back and he meant business. They went through the whole Love back catalogue, the crowd and Lee sharing the excitement and joy of a man who had rediscovered his sense of purpose. It was the greatest gig I've ever been to; some of the best pop music ever created played with urgency, conviction, and renewal.

Nothing has ever compared to Arthur Lee. As the lead singer and main songwriter of Love, he was responsible for music that, with historical hindsight, define the 1960s. Swirling psychedelia, dark edgy lyrics, sentimental idealism mixed with a druggy cynicism, their music captures the feeling of hope and fear that was evident, say, at the Stones' appearance at Altamont. Forever Changes is their defining moment, musically transcedent but lyrically fragmented and eerie, it sounds like nothing before it. But listen to any indie band gleefully playing a trumpet over glorious strings, and they'll have got it from Love. Love, though, weren't just a one album band; from My Little Red Book to Singing Cowboy, they created exciting and electryifying music.
After Forever Changes, Arthur Lee split Love up, and never recovered the musical inspiration behind their best moments. In the 1990s, he was sent to jail for 12 years under the three strikes and you're out rule, for waving around a shotgun he didn't have a licence for. But it seemed to focus his mind, and released after ive years he performed live again, including playing the whole of Forever Changes in sequence. It gave us all a chance to see him and revel in his unparallelled greatness.