For a brief period in the mid-1960s in Southern California, Love was the rock band to beat. In John Einarson’s recently updated and reissued book, Forever Changes: The Authorized Biography of Arthur Lee and Love, Jim Morrison is quoted as telling fellow Doors member Ray Manzarek around 1966, “You know, Ray, if we could be as big as Love, man, my life would be complete.” Obviously, the Doors achieved that goal and then some while Love, one of the most talented and influential bands of the 1960s, never enjoyed nationwide commercial success.
Einarson’s book explains the reasons for that, the most important of which appears to have been the stubbornness, quirkiness and bad luck of band leader Arthur Lee. He often refused to perform Love’s most popular material, and he didn’t like to tour. He even turned down an offer to appear at the hugely significant Monterey Pop Festival and nixed an invitation to perform at a 1969 New York event because he didn’t want to bother flying east for just one show—a show that turned out to be the Woodstock festival. Then, in 1996, a trio of relatively minor arrests in California led to a 12-year prison sentence, thanks to the state’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out law.
Back cover photo of Love’s Forever Changes. Arthur Lee is 2nd from right.
Lee did wind up being released from jail after serving slightly less than half of that sentence, after which he toured Europe with a new band, performing Love’s songbook—and especially its masterful third album, Forever Changes—to adoring audiences. Around the same time, though, he was diagnosed with the leukemia that killed him in 2006, at age 61.
Einarson’s book vividly details the ups and downs of Lee’s career and the milieu in which he and his band operated. It also offers smart commentary on the albums and singles in their discography and includes lots of insights into the group’s frequently abstruse lyrics. To cite one of many examples, a line in the group’s “Stephanie Knows Who” finds Lee singing, “A my love, B my love, so hard to choose.” Turns out Lee and the group’s Bryan McLean were vying for the love of a woman named Stephanie Buffington. In the song, “A” stands for Arthur and “B” for Bryan.
Related: Behind the scenes with Love’s Johnny Echols
The book could have benefited from a discography and a more complete index, and it includes somewhat more typos and grammatical errors than one might expect, especially in a second edition. But these are quibbles. The biography is even-handed and exhaustively researched and reveals as much as we’re ever likely to know about the brilliant and enigmatic Arthur Lee and his extraordinary band.
[The new edition of Forever Changes: The Authorized Biography of Arthur Lee and Love arrived on Sept. 10, 2024. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.]
A top editor at leading consumer and trade magazines for more than 40 years, Jeff has interviewed dozens of musical luminaries, including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tommy James, Tom Waits, the Righteous Brothers, and the members of Steely Dan.
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