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Back cover of "Forever Changes."
Kudos to the "Marketplace" producer who chose this plum from the music pile. A dry story in today's show about a book on the mortgage industry ended with some upbeat chords that jumped out of the radio. They were from "A House is Not a Motel," written by Arthur Lee, and sure sounded like the version from his band Love's 1967 album, "Forever Changes." Now, Arthur Lee and Love — one of the great under-appreciated Sunset Strip bands of the 1960s — don't show up on the radio very much, and even less often do you hear a track from "Forever Changes."
Turn it up:
The album on Elektra Records didn't make much of a splash in 1967, but it has come to be much revered. Wikipedia gets it:
Forever Changes failed to achieve commercial success when it was first released in 1967, but it has since become recognized as one of the finest albums to come out of the Summer of Love, ranking 40th on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 as well as being added to the National Recording Registry in May 2012.
"Forever Changes" was the final album produced by the early members of Love. According to Wikipedia lore, some of the songs include work by Wrecking Crew session musicians Billy Strange (guitar), Don Randi (piano), Hal Blaine (drums) and Carol Kaye (bass, guitar). "Forever Changes" was re-released by Rhino Records in 1995, 2001 and 2008. Lee wrote all the songs on the album except for "Alone Again Or," which is credited to band member Bryan MacLean.
Arthur Lee died in Memphis in 2006 at age 61 after being treated for acute myeloid leukemia. Robert Plant headlined a benefit concert for Lee at New York's Beacon Theater that year. In Vibe magazine, Kandia Crazy Horse wrote that "Forever Changes" was Lee's "psychedelic masterpiece ... an exhilarating mash-up of West Side freak folk with East Side mariachi and blues." Lee grew up in the West Adams district and attended Dorsey High School. He spent about five years in prison late in life for a conviction involving discharge of a firearm, later overturned.
After Lee died, the drummer for The Doors John Densmore wrote in the LA Times, "After experiencing Love, I knew I had a ways to go before being hip...This was a revolutionary band, way before Jimi Hendrix. No black man had crossed over from 'soul music' into rock before Arthur. I desperately wanted to be in this band."
By the way: I should have noted, Marketplace takes great pride in its musical choices.
