In 1996, Arthur Lee was convicted of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon and grossly negligent discharge of a firearm for allegedly shooting a gun in the air during a dispute with a neighbour. The previous year, Lee was arrested after an altercation with a former girlfriend. The possession charge stuck, but a federal appeals court in California reversed the negligence charge. Lee served 6 years of a 12-year sentence.
Since 1968 – when this album was first released – Lee’s career has been chequered to say the least. Isolated, reclusive and prone to the occasional recreational substance, Lee has so far failed to match as a solo artist the mindblowing and legendary status he was assured with 60s cult phenomenon, Love.
In 1993, Mazzy Star recorded Lee’s “Five String Serenade“ and included the song on their platinum-selling So That Tonight I Might See album, and it was during this time that Los Angeles indie-rockers, Baby Lemonade began to back Lee on a few tour dates. And this is where we come full circle. Lee’s plans were scuppured by his conviction and he had to wait a full seven years to resume work on his finest achievement yet: the ‘Forever Changes’ tour. I say ‘resume work’ because this is essentially the nature of this psychedelic rock opus. Unable to reproduce the dense, swirling and magnificent horn, string and vocal arrangements of the album live in their entirety in the late sixties, the album was never ‘toured’. As any musician will tell you, a song is never entirely complete until it’s been tested live, and with a collection of songs like this, it’s a little like leaving heaven before you’ve even arrived at the gates. If the 12-string guitars, the Spanish counterpoints, the mystically embodied vocals, the narrative leaps and time-signature twists and the very, very magical horn and string sections sounded classic on record, then they sound inconceivably vital live.
Folky, soulful and restlessly enigmatic, ‘Alone Again Or’, ‘The Daily Planet’, ‘Old Man’, ‘The Red Telephone’ are revisited not like little leathery and remote icons of nostalgia dragged screaming from the archive, they are tendered with force and relevancy. Lees voice is as good, if not better than it was on the original album, the band are tactile and imaginative rather than mindlessly faithful to the source material and the young and idealistic narratives wrought by this master-storyteller seem somehow to pack more weight now than they did in the sixties; the central wisdom of the album being strengthened rather than wearied by Lee’s experience.
Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London 2003, The Forever Changes Concert is out now as a rather handsome 2-CD set (glossy fold-out digipack, additional live songs, bonus video track of “Alone Again Or“, PC extras, expert sleeve notes from rock journo David Sinclair) and as an attractive DVD featuring a rare Arther Lee interview, documentary footage of the tour, a couple of excellent bonus tracks and an exclusive ‘hidden’ track featuring ex-Blur Guitarist Graham Coxon playing live with Love. And with a choice of 5.1 Dolby Surround sound and a stereo mix to choose from, you’re guaranteed excellent sound quality.
With track titles like ‘The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything Like This’ and ‘Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale’ you can pretty much anticipate the drill. Imagine The Flaming Lips with the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing in Mexico – and everyone including the tour managers are on acid.
The defining moment? A female member of the audience shouts out, ‘Arthur, You don’t know how long we’ve waited’ to which Arthur replies, ‘But you know how long I’ve waited’.
A resounding triumph at this less than traditional court of appeal. Lee can be truly absolved of just about any crime.
* The original album was recorded in The Castle – a Gothic Mansion in the Californian desert formerly owned by Bela Lugosi.
*Arthur Lee was the first person to recommended The Doors to Capitol Records.