Love

Love is an American psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1965 and active until 2005. The group is led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Arthur Lee, and its other key songwriter is guitarist Bryan MacLean. Love is one of the first racially diverse American pop bands, and its music brings together rock and roll, garage rock, folk, show tunes and psychedelia.

Formation and early lineup

Love emerges from the Los Angeles garage band The Grass Roots, and changes its name in 1965 to avoid confusion with another group using that name. The band includes, at different points, John Echols, Johnny Fleckenstein, Don Conka, Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer, Ken Forssi, Tjay Cantrelli, Michael Stuart-Ware, Jay Donnellan, Gary Rowles, Frank Fayad and George Suranovich.

The group lives communally in Bela Lugosi’s former Los Angeles home, known as The Castle, and the house appears on the covers of the first two album sleeves.

Albums and singles

Love releases its debut album in 1966, followed later the same month by the single “Seven and Seven Is/No. Fourteen”. That single is not included on the album and becomes the band’s only US Billboard Top 40 hit.

Its second album, Da Capo, appears in 1967. The record is notable for its split format: a more conventional first side and a second side dominated by the near 20-minute track “Revelation”.

The later 1967 album Forever Changes becomes the group’s best-known release and is widely regarded as one of the major rock albums of its era. It features elaborate orchestration alongside increasingly intricate writing from Lee and MacLean, but sells poorly in the United States, where it reaches No. 154 on the Billboard chart.

Later years

After Forever Changes, the band continues recording through frequent lineup changes and a gradual shift away from the more baroque style of that album towards straightforward rock, and later soul and funk. The 1970 album False Start includes a guest appearance by Jimi Hendrix from one of his last recording sessions.

Arthur Lee continues Love until 1975 after the other members have left, with drug problems cited as a factor. He later forms other bands using the name Love through the 1990s, sometimes with former bandmate Johnny Echols.