Customer Reviews

Arthur Lee: Alone Again Or

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In a word, this book is terrible. Perhaps the author was working with a very limited budget from the publishing house, but there is no doubt that this is one of the most poorly researched books I have ever read. It reads more like a long internet article from a casual fan. First of all, the subject of this book, Arthur Lee, was apparently only interviewed once, a few years back. And it wasn't much of an interview. Bryan Maclean was only interviewed once prior to his death. The rest of the material comes from liner notes from repackaged CDs and three magazine interviews of Arthur Lee in the early 1970s. Not a single interview with a contemporary of Arthur Lee such as Neil Young or David Crosby. Moreover, no interview with Johnny Echols! In fact, Echols was interviewed for the liner notes of the Love's first album and directly contradicts the book's account as to how Love took its name and how the Leaves got "Hey Joe" from Love. Whether Echols' account was true or not - this author makes no mention of it and obviously made no attempt to interview Echols. What attempt did he make to interview Lee from jail? Don't waste your money like me. A disaster from start to finish. And a complete con job!

This book barely contains any new information about Arthur Lee and his fascinating and brilliant group. It's ok if you don't know much about the group but die hard Lee fans will be quite disappointed in this book. I agreewith the other reviewers : most of this book I've read before in liner notes and online postings. This is strange because Hoskyns' other books that I've read (on The Band and music in Los Angeles) were engaging, informative, and entertaining. In addition, he writes for MOJO magazine, a British publication that is top notch. It's puzzling how he could write such an inferior work as this. I also don't know why Hoskyns loathes the post Forever Changes music by Love so much. Granted,it's not as essential as the first three albums, but still it is generally quite good. Overall, this is a very disappointing book.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT buy this book, especially if you are an Arthur Lee or Love fan. Nearly everything that is included in this book as already been published on the internet. It's almost as if Hoskyns didn't even write the book, since he pulls so much of his material from previous newspaper and magazine articles. He didn't even interview Lee in jail - didn't speak to Johnny Echols (who EVERYONE has been wondering about).

The Love story proper offers everything necessary to create one incredibly good book: fantastic music (the band recorded three mind-blowing albums in the mid/late 1960's ["Love", "Da Capo", and "Forever Changes"]); a reclusive and temperamental helmsman (Arthur Lee) whose nature cost the band much deserved exposure and success; and another incredibly creative force - the emotionally hypersensitive Bryan MacLean whose life could be called anything but ordinary. And that's just what readily comes to mind!

Consequently, it is amazing that anyone could take all of the above parts and create such an awful mess! The "book" (it's less than 200 pages, double-spaced, and with incredibly wide margins on all four sides!) barely skims the surface of everything about Lee and Love that COULD be explored. Instead, as another reviewer noted, the author merely repackages quotations and data from pre-existing magazine articles, reviews, and the like. (It looks and reads about like a research paper that a high school student might write.)

And forget this book if you're looking to learn anything about Lee's later efforts and experiences!

You'll probably have more fun (and come out with the same information) by just going to a university library and pulling back issues of publications from the 1960's or just reading the liner notes of some of the reissues that are out there.

Does anyone have any further information on the other Lee biography that the author quotes continually. Perhaps it's a good book....somebody let me know.

I have only recently got into the music of Love. It is quite unfortunate and a national tragedy that this band will never get the decent autobiography it deserves, since the major players have passed on to the hereafter. Besides the enigmatic Arthur Lee, Bryan MacLean led a very interesting life (going by the little I have read on this musician). He appears to have grown up in an upper class Los Angeles family, had met very many famous celebrities while very young (Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minneli)- all of which would have made great reading. Also interesting would have been exploring the reasons why this band never toured while in its hayday (ie: interviewing the bands' managers) This author has squandered the opportunity to do justice to this incredible band by not writing a competent biography with "Alone Again Or". And it is a bloody shame!!!