There are a number of albums in our lives it seems to me that evoke seminal moments in music history and they can be profoundly personal and they can be oddly eclectic and they can be middle of the road, pop, soul or jazz. Some transcend definition and hold moments of enlightenment that illuminate for us great moments of poetry. For me there have been many favourite album moments; the Stones first album with 'Route 66', the Beatles 'Hard Day's Night', 'Help' and 'Revolver' and of course 'Sgt Pepper', The Lovin' Spoonful 'Hums' featured large in my eardrobes and mind opening moments, Pink Floyd's 'Piper at The Gates of Dawn', Neil Young 'Harvest' Joni Mitchell 'Song to a Seagull', later there were the good Captain's 'Trout Mask Replica', 'Clear Spot', eccentric one off's like the delicious and still favourite Small Faces 'Ogden's Nutgone Flake' and later darker arts from the Velvets and 'White Light White Heat' and 'Loaded' as some sank into other experiences of existence pain, existential angst and heroin use, but through the gloom poetry music saw me through with John Cale's '1919' 'Fear' and Slow Dazzle' much later there would be Talking Heads '1977' and their entire output and also Brian Eno's entire oeuvre including my art school tutor composer Gavin Bryars' 'Sinking of the Titanic' not to mention playing violin in the art school studios with the short lived 'WhiporWills' and the output of the Portsmouth Symphonia.

'Love' and Arthur Lee's 'Forever Changes is one such album and the effect on me was like mind expanding drugs, it shook me and made me laugh, it made me think and it made me dance, it made me accept that you could still have a trumpet outside 'straight' music (LOL) above all it made me think, the singer spoke to me and me alone (a great poetic gift this) and it struck chords deep down inside of me with its lyric poetry. Above all it brought me great joy!

Big O (of course) have come up with a gem from Arthur and his final incarnation of 'LOVE' [mostly made up from the exceptional Baby Lemonade] who I missed in 2005 I think. I had tickets to see him here in Oxford and by then Arthur was clearly struggling with what was to turn out to be a form of leukaemia tho' he seems to have told no-one this from the outset. As he was a no-show we got our money back tho' could have seen them without Arthur and in retrospect I wish I had but so sad at missing Arthur I couldn't go. Later on we were to hear he had passed away. I was distraught after the excitement of finally thinking I was getting to see my hero, the man who introduced Jimi Hendrix to 'Hey Joe' and heroin (allegedly), the man who wrote 'Seven as Seven Is', 'Alone Again Or', 'andmoreagain' song titles like 'Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale' were always going to make this listener sit up. I must add I was a fan of THE WHOLE BAND and loved MacLean's rare vocals and songwriting too. I loved the drumming and I loved the trumpet playing, I loved the guitar and though I understand that especially 'Forever Changes' was Arthur's masterpiece it included work by other people too and later as the heroin took it's toll and the players changed and moved on, the band were never to equal the promise of  'Da Capo' so ably delivered in that first flash of Eden that was ' Forever Changes'. I must also add that they seem a little 'marmite' in that it I am told you either love them or hate them and this I don't understand either for me there was no choice!

Enjoy!

How can you not!?

Here they are in Norway 2004

Arthur Lee & Love - Norway 2004

If you want more and haven't stumbled or sought it out the DVD of 'Forever Changes Live' at The Royal Festival Hall which is a permanent part of the Swappers Gold Collection locked away in the Vault you can get it here.
 Forever Changes Concert DVD here
Buy & download the mp3 here
Forever Changes Concert mp3

My attitude is that you need to see it and it should be on every shelf in the land . . . . . I'm off for some marmite on toast

Love peace and understanding

Swappers