Forever Changes: The Authorized Biography of Arthur Lee and Love

By John Einarson with foreword by Johnny Echols (2024, 2^nd edition)

Jawbone Press*

UK & USA  isbn: 978-1-916829-12-1

In review by Alan Dearling

*Jawbone Press appears to have been liquidated in 2017 according to information on-line, but this book has definitely recently been published by Outline Press Ltd in 2024.

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This is something fairly unique. It’s a biography which includes major chunks of what would have been Arthur Lee’s own first autobiography, ‘Rainbow in the Storm: The Book of Love (Part One)’. However, Arthur died in August 2006. John Einarson, based in Canada, contacted Arthur’s widow, Diane for permission to write this major biography. He hit pay dirt. The majority of the very significant ‘players’ in Arthur Lee’s and Love’s many lives agreed to be interviewed. It’s a fascinating roller-coaster ride into the heart of darkness along with some exhilarating moments of magical, mystical light and positivity. The book is an exciting read, but uncomfortable too. It’s intense, scatological with chronology, and confronts in great detail both Arthur’s genius and degradations.

Arthur wrote: “Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody’s gotta live … to make mistakes. And learn from living. You thought I was going to say “mistakes” didn’t you? People can lock up your body but only God can take your soul.”

Einarson’s book is an immersive experience. Johnny Echols, who was a school friend of Arthur’s, co-founded the band, Love in 1965 (evolving out of an earlier band, The Grass Roots’). Johnny says: “We were proud of being the first racially integrated band.”

A bit of context: I personally was a child of the 1960s and spent a lot of my part-time earnings whilst still at school buying albums, especially those from American bands and musicians, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Love. Love was the least known, and as the book explains, their albums sold poorly in the States. Their cult status relied on the myths, magic and the misinformation about Arthur Lee. Arthur, we learn from the book, seems to have always had a self-belief that verged on the manic. It was also probable that it could be deemed as schizophrenic too. Johnny Echols describes him as, “A natural showman.” Arthur was kind and loving to many of his friends and musical colleagues. But he also hurt many, damaged, confused, betrayed friends and fell in and out of love with predictable, dangerous results. The repercussions affected Arthur himself and just about everyone in his various orbits.

Einarson captures this rock ‘n’ roll life and its consequences with a relish and plenty of energy. The book reflects the disturbed brilliance of Arthur Lee and that of some of his colleagues in Love, especially Brian Maclean who wrote some of the most memorable songs, in particular, ‘Alone Again Or’. But essentially, Arthur had to be the focus of attention, Love had to be HIS band. The book captures the essence, the instabilities of Arthur, and it certainly reminded me of how great many of the Love tracks are, both for Arthur’s dense, convoluted, poetic lyrics, but also for the arrangements, musicality and individual performances. It also allows readers to enter into the consequences of Arthur’s own myopic personality. For instance,

• He often obsessed about whether he, (Arthur), was black or white?
• Would Love and Arthur have been much more successful if he had been willing to tour more and travel abroad during the original life of Love? Was Arthur just too insular, too much a ‘home-bird’, staying put in Los Angeles and only rarely venturing beyond San Francisco?
• Was the record label, Elektra, too small and poorly resourced to provide adequate promotion?
• Arthur resented many of the other stars and bands such as The Doors and wanted to headline at every show.
• Was Arthur too focussed on money and the homes and luxuries that it could buy?
• He admired and also resented the fame of Jimi Hendrix. Arthur’s 1972 solo recordings on ‘Vindicator’ owed inspiration to Jimi and perhaps Robert Plant/Led Zeppelin, and it bombed both critically and with the record-buying public.
• Was Arthur drug-fuelled, dangerous, too unreliable, often out of control, or, much misunderstood?
• Arthur blamed ‘Whitey’ and rip-off managers and producers for his own failures and short-comings. It lost him many supporters and friends.

By the end of his life, Arthur Lee, immediately after over six years incarcerated in Pleasant Valley prison, discovered new validation with a set of performances across Europe. And particularly in the UK it found him being rightly venerated, lauded for many of his songs, his performances and for the creation of the ‘Forever Changes’ magnum opus. A meister-werk (masterpiece), indeed, which many have voted as the best, or one of the best, rock music albums of all-time.

At the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2003, Love’s ‘Forever Changes’ album plus other favourite songs were recorded and filmed under the auspices of Gene Kraut who funded this and a concert tour.  Available on Red Snapper Records, it is well worth checking out, even though some felt that there were even better shows during that tour. The 2003 version of Love were essentially Arthur and the band, Baby Lemonade, plus the cream of Sweden’s orchestral musicians, under arranger, Gunnar Norden. But live in concert, Baby Lemonade had become Love. And Mike Randle was an exceptional lead guitarist. Arthur was on absolute top form. His vocals were clearer than back in the 1960s. ‘Forever Changes’ was still strange, whimsical and the lyrics remained often oblique and full of idiosyncratic juxtapositions. But the new live performances are more musical, more accessible, with Arthur’s vocals being more nuanced. All in all, closer to being what should have been a contender to the Beatles’ ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

Einarson’s book offers a journey of discovery that most people who have ever heard of Arthur Lee and Love will find worthwhile. The photos at the beginning of the book are excellent quality, the print is nice and clear to read, the only gripe is in some unfortunately poor copy-editing which has left in some fair ‘howlers’ such as, in 2008 when ‘Forever Changes’ was being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, it is then described on the final page of the book as: “Arthur Lee’s gifts were being formerly recognized in the land of his birth.”

However, that relatively minor gripe apart, the tales of Arthur’s life make for a great, even when unsettling, read. And it may well lead to many readers searching out Arthur’s missing or misunderstood albums, his ventures into R&B and funk such as ‘Black Beauty’ (recorded in 1973; limited release in 2012) and the re-released ‘Reel to Real’ (originally released in probably about 1974. Newly released by High Moon Records with bonus tracks in 2015).