SOMETHING ABOUT ARTHUR LEE INVITES
MYTH. Lee -- the cantankerous, charismatic singer
and guitarist of the groundbreaking yet largely
forgotten band Love -- inspires tales that spring up
from the streets, ghostlike and strange as urban
legend: A bum shuffles up to someone who's
strumming a guitar on a park bench, coughs and says
sheepishly, that he, too, knows how to play a little.
Only after the guy is duly brushed-off and disappears
down the street does the strummer realize it was
Arthur Lee. In the late '60s, the story went, Lee
performed his ragged rock epic, "Revelation,"
grabbed a gun, and promptly blew his brains out
onstage after the final chordal crescendo. Then there's
the one about how Lee and his band murdered --
hanged -- their roadie. Or how about this story
offered by Bruce Botnick,
who helped record two of
Love's early albums: "I was
going to the Whisky in the
'80s," Botnick says, sitting in
his home in Pacific Palisades,
"and this bum stopped me, scared the hell out of me.
He said, 'Hey, man, do you have any money?' He was
obviously strung out." And then Botnick realized who
this person was. "It was Arthur, and he didn't even
recognize me." Botnick shakes his head, "It made me
feel terrible." Though only the last story might have some basis in
truth, veracity is not the issue here. In the 30-some
years since Love first performed, Lee has become
L.A.'s Robert Johnson, the blues artist who
supposedly sold his soul to the devil at the
crossroads. He's a regional mystery, an enigmatic
underground hero whose bouts with anonymity,
addiction, and the law have only amplified talk of his
genius. Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll
calls Lee "the missing link" between the Byrds and
the Doors. While the Byrds and early Beach Boys
captured the sweet sunniness of the California dream,
and the Doors slithered down to dig into its dark
underbelly, Love is the band that best represented, in
music and in life, the true dichotomies, the real
psychic split -- the sunshine and the noir -- of Los
Angeles. The story of the band touches upon the
mind-boggling heights and the dull dissipation of its
city. And Lee changed music. Love was the first rock
group signed by Jac Holzman to then-folk label
Elektra. Most people agree that it was the first
interracial rock group, if you don't count doo-wop.
Before he formed Love, a teenaged Lee -- making his
stab at becoming the next Phil Spector -- gave a
young upstart named Jimi Hendrix a studio gig on
Rosa Lee Brooks' moony symphonette "My Diary."
Some say that Hendrix lifted Lee's outrageous "black
hippie" fashion schtick. Musically, Love combined
everything from garage-punk to soul to psych-rock to
mariachi in its songs; at least three of its records are
classics. As the leader of L.A.'s sexiest, most
seductive, relevant, and underappreciated rock
bands, Lee has had a serious influence on younger
musicians and fans. Everyone from the Ramones to
Lenny Kravitz to Blondie to Echo and the Bunnymen
to Yo La Tengo has been affected by his largely
ignored band. "Look at his body of work. Listen to it," says Botnick,
who has aged into a successful soundtrack producer.
"It's had a big impact. I turn on the radio, I know what
they're listening to." But though the
band's influence is
universally
acknowledged, and
though most people
who brushed against the
group in the '60s -- like
Botnick -- have
profited from that
association, the actual
members themselves
seem cursed. Lee
languishes in a jail cell
at Pleasant Valley State
Prison in Coalinga,
doing 12 years for
shooting a gun in the
air. (Again, that's 12
years and gun in the
air.) He has appealed
his conviction two
times in state court and
lost. His last chance, a
federal appeal, will be
either accepted or
rejected by early
summer. His case has
infuriated fans such as
Nick Saloman, singer for British group the
Bevis Frond, who has collaborated with Lee in
the past and who gave an irate speech about
Lee's plight when his band played the Silver
Lake club Spaceland in 1996, not long after Lee
was locked up. "I think the draconian kind of sentence he
received is appalling," Saloman says now. "I
think it's an absolute travesty that someone like
that's shut away. We should be erecting statues
for him, not locking him away in prison." The rest of the band hasn't fared much better.
Half of them -- guitarist Bryan MacLean and
bassist Ken Forssi -- have recently died. Flutist
and saxophonist Tjay Cantrelli (real name: John
Barberis) is presumed dead, though no one
really knows. Drummer Michael Stuart became
a professional photographer, but changed his
name so he couldn't be tracked down.
Drummer/keyboardist Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer
is an inveterate world-wanderer. Johnny
Echols' whereabouts remain a mystery, but
people seem to imagine him walking off into the
desert and never coming back. One thing is
certain: He sure doesn't want to talk about his
old band. Nor do any of his old bandmates;
rather than feeling pride about their
accomplishments, they seem terribly anxious to
shake off any and all associations with Love. "As inconsistent as Arthur's been," says Harold
Bronson -- co-founder of Rhino Records, who
made sure that the label's first band
retrospective was 1980's Best of Love -- "he's
much more together than anybody else when you
think about the notorious people in that band."
After all, Lee continued to play music,
occasionally catching a small wave of fame and
then riding it, almost inevitably, into some kind
of trouble. Says Bronson, "By comparison,
Arthur was very together." Self-destructive, prickly to fans, slightly
disconnected face-to-face -- such was Lee's
peculiar brand of togetherness. Bronson says
that when he met the singer, a real hero of his
teenhood, he was surprised by his lackluster
personality. "It was difficult to reconcile in my
mind that the writer who just wrote really
amazing, articulate, literate lyrics was the same
person sitting across from you, talking to you."
But Lee's ongoing enigma as gained more
attention and the cult appeal of his band has
grown. Love is enjoying a renaissance 30 years
after the first incarnation of the group bitterly
fell apart. "The stories are so ridiculous," Lee says over
the telephone from prison, granting the first
interview since his incarceration. "But when
they stop talking about you, that's when you're in
trouble. That's why I've got to get out of here.
I've got to start stirrin' up more stories." "Can't explain/Nothing
seems to go right/Can't
explain/Nothing seems
to go right/Well, now,
you wake up in the
morning/And find your
poor self dead." -- "Can't Explain,"
Love (1966) Arthur Lee has
become a conundrum
because of his
unpredictable
character: Many
people describe his
two sides, the charmer
and the rogue. He has
written incredibly
sensitive love songs
(the haunting,
bittersweet "A
Message to Pretty"),
yet he's known for
being physically
abusive to girlfriends,
who seem remarkably
loyal to him. He can be ridiculously
litigious-minded: His latter-day backup band,
Baby Lemonade, claims he wanted to sue the
Clash for stealing his punk prototype, the
unlaced-combat-boot fashion idea. But he has
repeatedly undermined his own money-making
possibilities by trying the patience of people
who've attempted to help him, from promoters
to record executives. During his shockingly
under-publicized trial, when he needed press
probably more than at any other time in his life,
he shunned every reporter -- from the Los
Angeles Times to Rolling Stone -- who tried to
get near him. According to friends who continue
to love him, he can be the best friend in the
world. Cross him -- he'll be your worst enemy. Talking with Lee by telephone, with him
sounding so lucid and calm, it's nearly
impossible to believe these stories. He's
incredibly charming. "Arthur's a master con man," Botnick says.
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