Love Lost [Vinyl]

Love (Artist) | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl (December 22, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Sundazed Music Inc.
• ASIN: B002MT3BDU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #417,495 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Love Jumped Through My Window

2. I Can't Find It

3. He Said She Said

4. Product of the Times

5. Sad Song

6. Everybody's Gotta Live

7. Midnight Sun

8. Good & Evil I

9. He Knows a Lot of Good Women

10. C.F.I.

11. Find Somebody

12. For a Day

13. Good & Evil II

14. Looking Glass

15. Trippin' & Slippin'/Ezy Ryder

16. He Knows a Lot of Good Women (alternate)

17. Find Somebody (alternate)

18. Midnight Sun (alternate)

19. Product of the Times (alternate)

Editorial Reviews

Rolling Stone

The long wilderness years of Arthur Lee, the mercurial singer-songwriter-commander of the Los Angeles band Love, began with an abandoned 1971 LP for Columbia, now resurrected on Love Lost (Sundazed). By then, Lee was four years and several Love lineups away from the dark orchestral magic of 1967's Forever Changes. The full-band tracks here are heavy serrated-guitar rock (this is the Love I saw at a late-1970 Fillmore East show), and Lee's writing is aggressively blunt in "Everybody's Gotta Live" (re-cut for his 1974 solo debut, Vindicator) and "Product of the Times". But there is a fighting magnetism in the music and Lee's voice. He sings with fierce engagement even on acoustic demos like "Sad Song". Lee slipped in and out of sight after this, until the end-of-the-century Love revival. But it is clear here that even on the eve of exile, Lee had much love to give. -David Fricke

This is pretty exciting - the missing link between the False Start Love and early Arthur Lee solo material like Vindicator and the also unreleased Black Beauty. Recorded in 1971, this putative major label debut is the seedbed for those later two records but superior to both in its loose energy. Mixing acoustic demos with spirited riff-rock work-outs - including Craig Tarwater from the Sons Of Adam, famed for their killer cover of Lee's "Feathered Fish" - Love Lost plays very well. Only occasionally does it verge on the wilful sloppiness that apparently sabotaged the project. But songs like "He Said She Said" - with its lyrical reference to Vietnam - are worthy additions to the Love canon. As is the final track, "Trippin' And Slippin'/Ezy Rider", which over six minutes inhabits the recently departed spirit of Jimi Hendrix. Well if anyone was entitled, Arthur Lee was. -Jon Savage

Poor LOVE and ARTHUR LEE. If there's such a thing as the curse of a masterpiece, they suffered it. As creators of Forever Changes, one of the most justifiably acclaimed and iconic psychedelic recordings of the 60s, Lee and whatever musicians with which he surrounded himself would find any work done since compared to the signpost and inevitably found wanting. This has led to most of Love's post-_Changes_ work being dismissed as inconsequential on the face of it, which, to my mind, is unfair. Sure, the late 60s Love albums aren't as good as Forever Changes, but how could they have been? Like so many landmarks, that album was the result of a particular time, place and set of circumstances coinciding with a peak in the artist's talent - recreation or even emulation is impossible. So let's not judge Lee's later work solely on the basis of his personal apex, but on the quality of the work itself. Which brings us to Love Lost. Recorded in 1971 as part of an ill-fated deal with Columbia Records, this album (allegedly to be called Dear You) would later be cannibalized for Lee's solo debut Vindicator. As with most of his later music, Lee's songs rest in bluesy hard rock settings, a milieu which may not allow for the subtleties inherent in his more celebrated work, but is nonetheless effective. The pummeling "Product of the Times" (appearing as a studio recording for the first time), the lustful "He Knows a Lot of Good Women" and the amazing "I Can't Find It" tremble under the attack of particularly ragged arrangements, but never fall - Lee's songsmithery can withstand such rough treatment. Topped with Lee's near-maniacal vocal performances (a subject of some controversy, due to suspicions that Lee was deliberately sabotaging the recordings), the tracks blaze with energy and excitement. It may not be Forever Changes, but it's still great rock & roll. Making a good thing even better, though, is the inclusion of nearly a half-dozen demos, with Lee backing himself on acoustic guitar so percussive it makes a full band unnecessary. "He Said She Said," "Sad Song," the lascivious (and, by today's standards, politically incorrect) "Good & Evil," which also appears in electric form, the previously unreleased "For a Day" and especially "Love Jumped Through My Window" (which opens this record) are all stellar songs, strong in both melody and performance, which is again somewhat - deliberately? - rough and raw. Love Lost may not be as flat-out brilliant as Forever Changes, but it holds up nicely on its own as a worthy chapter in the book of Love. -Michael Toland

Product Description

Arthur Lee's seminal work as leader of the '60s band Love is treasured by discerning rock fans around the world. Lee's status as one of his era's preeminent musical cult heroes has grown immensely in recent years, leading to generations of new fans rediscovering the artist's remarkable catalog. Unfortunately, Lee and the band's body of available recordings is relatively small, making Sundazed Music's release of a previously-unheard full-length vintage Arthur Lee and Love album a major musical event.

Love Lost was recorded in 1971, during a brief, little-known period during which Love was signed to Columbia Records. Lee and the then-current Love lineup--bassist Frank Fayad, guitarist Craig Tarwater and drummer Don Poncher--recorded an album's worth of new material for the label. But after the band left the company, the recordings sat unreleased and unheard until now. The material on Love Lost--comprised of the unreleased Columbia sessions, plus five unreleased acoustic demos from the same period--captures Love in a transitional phase, charting the next step in Lee's idiosyncratic musical trajectory, following the lush garage-psychedelia of the classics Da Capo and Forever Changes, and the bluesier direction of the hardrocking False Start and Out Here.

Many of the songs included on Love Lost would resurface, often in radically different form, on subsequent Love releases, and on Lee's fabled solo album Vindicator. But the original versions included on Love Lost, boast a playful looseness that's absent from most of Lee's later work, as well as a raw, edgy urgency that underlines his credentials as an early progenitor of punk-rock attitude. Love Lost also features three songs--"For a Day," "Trippin' & Slippin'" and "C.F.I. Instrumental"--that have not previously been released, in any form.

With a treasure trove of vintage Love music that has never before been heard by fans, Love Lost is a major addition to Arthur Lee and Love's body of work, and its release is a major event for Lee's fervent fan base.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little known but fascinating slice of history, November 27, 2009

By 

Mr. John L. Ward "John Ward Byrd Brain" (Manchester, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Lost (Audio CD)

Back in 1972, I can recall the lengthy hiatus that had seemed to follow the release of the last proper Love album. Eventually our music magazines began to report that Arthur Lee was recording as a solo artist for A&M...and in due course this was confirmed in an interview with surviving Doors. I do not recall seeing it reported anywhere at the time that a new look Love had signed with Columbia in early '71 and had already recorded an unreleased album for the label. With this very welcome new release, we are now able to explore fully this hitherto unknown epoch in Love history. Arthur Lee's solo acoustic tracks on the album definitely have an eeriness to them.... a welcome change following the heavily amplified all electric sound on 'False Start'. By the same token, the songs featuring the ensemble playing of Lee, Tarwater, Fayad and Poncher seem to have much more edge and subtlety to them than the versions that were re-recorded for 'Vindicator' a year later. It is interesting to note that the version of 'Everybody's Gotta Live' included here had not yet been fully developed....Arthur had yet to pen the lines that begin: "It's seems like I have seen just about a million sunsets, she said if you're with me I'll never go away". Of the previously unheard songs, the most melodic is probably 'For a Day', which is vaguely reminiscent of John Sebastian's 'Daydream'. There is also a hidden track tucked away at the very end of the CD....but I'll leave everyone to discover that one for themselves!

You obviously wouldn't want to start with 'Love Lost' if you were seeking to turn someone on to Love's music for the first time. As David Angel observed towards the end of 'Love Story', some people are destined to do a particular thing at a particular time.....and I think that in all honesty by 1971, Arthur's star had already burned brilliantly....and had faded. But pitched midway between 'False Start' and 'Vindicator', this album is, to my ears better than either. And the sound of Frank Fayad's ever faithful bass - every bit as resonant as it is on 'Four Sail' - is strangely moving.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too loose for it's own good, April 14, 2010

By 

Gern Blandton (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Love Lost (Audio CD)

First off, let me just say that I am a huge fan of Arthur Lee and have been since I first heard Love doing "Little Red Book" on the radio way back in 1966. I also rate "Forever Changes" as one of the best albums ever made and count myself lucky to have seen Arthur and Love (actually Baby Lemonade) perform the album live back in 2002, one of the best live shows I have ever seen. Having said all that, I must say this "lost" Columbia album is pretty dismal, even for this megafan. Most of the songs are available elsewhere from around the same period, mainly on Arthur's solo album "Vindicator", and the other versions are far superior. The problem with the studio tracks here is that it just sounds like the band are rehearsing, running through the tracks and trying to get them into workable shape. Columbia rejected the album because it was too sloppy and this is a rare case where a major label actually made a wise decision. If you're a hardcore Love/Arthur Lee fan, you're going to buy this anyway, but everyone else should stay away. Try and find "Vindicator", or, if you've never heard it (and why not?), "Forever Changes", Arthur's masterpiece.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hodgepodge, June 4, 2010

By 

echoes of empires (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Lost (Audio CD)

While Forever Changes is unquestionably Love's great album, I'm also a great fan of Four Sail. Lee takes Love in a much harder-rocking direction, but maintains much of his 'arthur-lee-ness.' On Love Lost, we find Love pursuing that direction, a bit sloppily, for 9 tracks; there are also 5 acoustic 'demos' scattered throughout. Truly, it's a mixed bag. For instance, "Looking Glass" has an excellent guitar riff - lean, mean and really catchy (a bit like Free or Cream), but pretty awful lyrics. "Everybody's Gotta Live" is of course a small melodic gem. The final and longest track is mostly riffage, a bit too close to "Revelation" for my tastes; and the rest of the full band tracks are similarly here and there. My favorites far and away are two of the acoustic tracks, "He Said She Said" and "Sad Song," both straight up acoustic blues, just Arthur and his guitar - it's wonderful hearing Arthur play them. It's not a great album, but for folks who seriously go in for Lee and Love it's definitely worthwhile.