Arthur Lee - That's the Way It Goes - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (1992)

First off, just to be clear, Arthur Lee was the singer and songwriter for the vast majority of songs by Love, the band best known for the classic 1967 album "Forever Changes." By the end of the 1960s, Love basically became Lee plus a changing group of back-up musicians, with all the other original members gone. He often continued to bill himself as "Love," but this is basically a collection of solo acoustic recordings, so it seems appropriate to me to bill this to Lee instead of using a band name.

In many cases, a musician and/or band has a heyday and I have very little interest in what they do decades later. But Arthur Lee is a different case. He had many lost years, including spending 1996 to 2002 in prison for "negligent discharge of a firearm." (An appeals court later overturned the conviction, and the prosecutor was found guilty of misconduct.) He often had trouble with drug addiction as well. Sadly, he died of leukemia in 2006. But in the 1990s and 2000s, from time to time, he got his act together and wrote new songs that were just as good as the Love songs from the best years of that band.

The early 1990s were one of those times when Lee got his act together and wrote and performed at a high level. As a sign that he still "had it," one song he wrote around that time, "Five String Serenade," was later covered by Mazzy Star, Jack White of the White Stripes. However, one problem about Lee in his later decades was that he never really got his act together enough to record any well-produced albums of his new songs. (There were a few attempts, but each of them are problematic for various reasons.)

Luckily, we can enjoy many of Lee's quality new songs due to the fact that he played them in solo acoustic format in 1992. (He actually played songs in acoustic format occasionally in the 1990s and 2000s, but for whatever reason, the best sounding recordings all seem to come from 1992.)

Most of the songs here come from an officially released box set of Love's live recordings called "Coming through to You." However, the vast majority of the songs on this four disc box set are full-band performances. I think it makes sense to pull out the acoustic performances and listen to them separately. Some are from radio shows, and others are from concerts where I've removed the audience noise.

On top of that, I've included three songs that were recorded in a studio around 1992, but never released (at least not in those acoustic versions). Ironically, these studio performances probably sound the worst of all the songs on this album. But that's only true in a relative sense. The sound quality is still fairly high all the way through.

Most of the songs here were written by Lee long after Love's heyday in the 1960s. But there are four exceptions: "Alone Again Or," "Hey Joe" (which is a cover done famously by Jimi Hendrix), "Signed D.C.," and a medley of Lee's "Everybody's Got to Live" and John Lennon's "Instant Karma." The reason I'm including these is because they are probably the only quality versions of Lee doing this songs in an acoustic format.

In conclusion, if you enjoy "Forever Changes" and the other great Love music from the 1960s, you really should give this a listen. Don't be put off by the year. Lee definitely had a worthy creative resurgence, and this is probably the best way to listen to it.

01 Five String Serenade (Arthur Lee)
02 Ninety Miles Away (Arthur Lee)
03 Passing By - Hoochie Coochie Man (Arthur Lee)
04 Girl on Fire (Arthur Lee)
05 You're the Prettiest Song (Arthur Lee)
06 I Believe in You (Arthur Lee)
07 Alone Again Or (Arthur Lee)
08 Hey Joe (Arthur Lee)
09 Somebody's Watching You (Arthur Lee)
10 L.A. Calocoa (Arthur Lee)
11 That's the Way It Goes (Arthur Lee)
12 Signed D.C. (Arthur Lee)
13 Everybody's Gotta Live - Instant Karma (Arthur Lee)

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The cover art photo is of Lee playing in concert in San Francisco in 1992. I lightened the background some, because otherwise, Lee is visually lost with his dark clothes in a dark room. I wish I could find a photo of him playing acoustically around 1992, but I haven't had any luck with that.