Well it's a 

LOVE FEST!

One of the most regular posters of cool,  Silent Way,  has by sheer coincidence reposted a Love album over at the wondrous Floppy Boot Stomp this morning. It is curiously one of the weirdest additions to the Arthur Lee and 'Love' canon ever released and I am never sure quite what I make of it. 
By the early seventies it is well known Arthur was at best struggling, hanging with Jimi Hendrix (it has often been alleged it was Lee who introduced Jimi to heroin but Arthur is on record as having said he hated junk and never developed a habit, it having certainly finished off the band that featured and showed such strength for Da Capo and Forever Changes  but the struggles to find a new sound post 'Four Sail' and 'False Start' by this time Arthur again changed the entire lineup of band members from an exclusively black group of colleagues or associates. To then name the album 'Black Beauty' produced by these guys, again under Arthur's 'direction', never sat quite comfortably for me but his play with words and love of language would have appealed to Arthur's humour and no mistake. He undoubtedly would have enjoyed my middle class white boy discomfort and found it hilarious.



Now Silent Way has posted an item that is not the later release remastered effort some years later and whilst extended it isn't the same as the one Plain & Fancy posted links to and listed by me t'other day.
For that reason alone I post it here and I do find it fascinating. It somehow sounds like the musical style is going backwards to earlier more naive times. It contains pop and starts sounding like soul type classics even featuring instrumentals. (Whilst I always rated Arthur as a guitarist his command of language is so curiously absent on any instrumental mock Booker T and The MGs stone cold classic sound is a curiosity to say the least. He does reclaim the poetic higher ground later on but there is nothing to match the earlier late sixties masterpieces.

Silent Way says:

On the whole, this particular line-up sounds perfectly rough and unrehearsed, generating a tense energy on “Skid” and “Stay Away” even as they suggest a band still figuring out exactly what they can do together. It’s a strong album, but it’s not another Forever Changes, whose accomplishments in retrospect were unrepeatable, or even another Four Sail. On the other hand, Lee wasn’t aiming to craft something in that vein. Still, especially considering the professional setbacks he had faced in the years leading up to Black Beauty-- which includes being dropped by Elektra and shuffling through a series of independent labels.

Arthur Lee & Love - Black Beauty - Floppy Boot Stomp (reboot)

Arthur Lee & Love 
Black Beauty & Rarities

The Unreleased "Black Beauty" Album and Assorted Rarities
Studio soundboard recordings @ 160 

Track List: 
01 The Ninth Wave
02 Rumble-Still-Skins
03 Soul Food
04 Luci Baines
05 It's The Marlin, Baby
06 Everybody Jerk
07 Slow Jerk
08 I Been Trying
09 My Diary
10 I'm Good & Evil (Do What I Do)
11 Midnight Sun
12 Walk Right In
13 Skid, Not Really A Friend
14 Beep Beep
15 Stay Away
16 I Got To Find It
17 Lonely Man
18 Where Were You
19 You're Just A Product Of The Time
20 Give Me A Little Energy
21 Feathered Fish #1
21 Feathered Fish #2

Arthur Lee - Memorial

For comparison the Rockasteria posted this the remastered version back in 2017 and both are worth checking out of course. I listened to the reboot from Floppy Boot this morning and it is fascinating and very good quality as you would expect. Again as per the notes on the Rockasteria pages they have texts about the items posted there and it is worth a read if nothing else

Love - Black Beauty - remaster 1973 (2017)- Plain & Fancy

Tracks1. Young And Able (Good And Evil) - 3:242. Midnight Sun - 3:333. Can't Find It - 3:464. Walk Right In (Gus Cannon, Hosea Woods) - 3:235. Skid (Angela Rackley, Riley Racer) - 2:526. Beep Beep - 2:147. Stay Away - 2:478. Lonely Pigs - 4:259. See Myself In You - 3:0310.Product Of The Times - 4:1111.Thomasine And Bushrod (Title Song From The Motion Picture) - 2:2612.Arthur Lee Interview - 22:1613.Every Time I Look Up, I'm Down  - 3:3214.Nothing  - 3:0615.Keep On Shining  - 5:5616.L.A. Blues (Tom T. Hall) - 3:02All songs by Arthur Lee except where notedTracks 1 to 9 recorded Spring-Winter, 1973 at Valentine's, North Hollywood, CA; Paramount Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA; Wally Heider Studios, Hollywood, CA.Track 10 Recorded Live at Boston Tea Garden 1970Tracks 13-15 Live at Electric Gardens, Glasgow, 5/30/1974

Love

*Arthur Lee - Guitar, Vocals, Harpsichord*Joe Blocker - Drums, Vocals*Robert Rozelle - Bass*Melvan Whittington - Guitar, Harpsichord

With*Frank Fayad - Bass*Don Poncher - Drums*Byron Reynolds - Drums*Riley Racer - Dobro*Craig Tarwater - Guitar*Carl McKnight - Steel Drums*Matt Devine - Bass, Guitar, Vocals*John Sterling - Guitar

Arthur's headstone