Love-The Debut Album

Love were a great L.A. folk-rock, psychedelic band of the 60’s that never got beyond cult status. Arthur Lee was the leader of the band, main vocalist, brilliant songwriter and led one of the first integrated rock bands. Love had an obvious Byrds influence, which is not surprising considering rhythm guitarist/vocalist Bryan Maclean was originally a roadie for the band, but they were more than that incorporating flamenco, jazz, blues and folk music into the mix. Sometimes though, they just sounded like a great garage rock band as on the classic explosive single 7 And 7 Is which ends with the sound of an atom bomb going off!

They should have been huge but apparently Arthur didn’t like to tour, do publicity and in general was not interested or perhaps able to do what was necessary to go “big” although it sounds like it was just his unique personality and nature from what I have read. Love was the first rock band signed to Elektra Records and Arthur recommended The Doors to the owner of the label who eventually signed them and they went on to eclipse Love and all the other L.A. bands of the time.

Recorded in only 21 hours over four days here are two tracks from the debut album. First is My Flash On You (mono mix) a garage rocker with fuzzed out bass, crunchy guitars and a defiant vocal. Signed D.C. (mono mix) is a haunting folk song about the perils of drug addiction with a beautiful and soulful vocal by Arthur.

Buy it here.