tracks on LP: Stephanie Knows Who / Orange Skies / Que Vida / Seven & Seven Is / The Castle / She Comes In Colors / Revelation
Elektra ELK 42 011 (1981 stereo re-issue)
Producer: Paul Rothchild
Recorded in Hollywood
Love is:
Arthur Lee
John Echols
Bryan Maclean
Ken Forrsi
Alan “Snoopy” Pfisterer
Tjay Cantrelli
Michael Stuart
Released: May 1981
Purchased: 24/09/83
This was a cult album among the first generation of Zigzaggers, a West Coast classic from ’67 – a period ironically coming back into strong vogue after all the slagging off of ‘Old Hippies’ four years ago.
This is a gentle, innovative record (on one side, anyway). “The Castle”, which was once the theme music for BBC’s ‘Holiday’ series, is one of the most atmospheric things ever done, with its undulating acoustic guitars and mysterious vocals.
Stuff like “Orange Skies”, “She Comes In Colors”, and “Stephanie Knows Who” are airy, distinct examples of acid-rock tinged with the airy-fairy craze of flutes and harpsichords back then.
Worth buying for the whirling “Seven & Seven Is” and its psychotic Buddy Holly drums, (but before you do, take into account that Side Two is all one track – one of them jamming-type efforts with loads of solos). (Zig Zag, July 1981)
I WISH no part of any alleged conspiracy to further the remarkable reputation or enigma of Arthur Lee, nor add a single stitch to the embroidery of Julie Burchill’s celebrated tapestry of rock, deceased: merely recall that one Max Bell once said Lee was definitely off the bus while the rest of the West Coast was queuing for tickets.
Expressions tell everything! see one on you.
Pace the jangly guitars and Jaggerstrutta vocals, all are faithfully worked into the faded weave, inscribed in myth, as is the debt to Johnny Mathis, or how up close Arthurly is so hip it like really phases you out. I mean, you know the buzz you get off of really good Moroccan? With pictures and words, is this communicating?
Personally. I always consider that Bryan Maclean is crucial to Love’s apparent dichotomy. He provides the flower power motif that lends many ears to regard this music as artefact. Arthur Lee was definitely off the bus etc . . . Nor must we forget the huge debut the world owes to Mr. Tjay Cantrelli’s sunglasses, neither neglect mention of John Echols, who provides not altogether proficient but certainly peppermint guitar noises.
We may also make issue of harpsichords from Telemann. the fact of Karl Mark having lived above Leoni’s Quo Vadis restaurant in Dean Street, the recommended reading of Ralph Ellison for greater insight into ‘She Comes In Colors’, the apparent dated aspect of ‘Orange Skies’, even though sunsets are blessed with as roseate a blush as ever they were in 1967, and the K in ‘The Castle’.
Arthur Lee understood the tribal coming ere its approach. “Here’s my baggage and my staff,” he sings, “leaving by a boat, a plane, a raft . . . ”
Whither goest thou? (NME, May 1981)
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