Here a great promo video for Love. Arthur Lee's dark surreal lyrics and flamboyant manner of dress had a big impact on Jimi Hendrix who popped up in London a year and a half after Love's first album with his own psychedelic band. It all started with Love and their impact on psychedelic music has spanned four decades. Their critically aclaimed masterpiece, Forever Changes peaked at #157 on the sales charts and has yet to break the 500,000 sales mark after 40 years.
Love originally called themselves the Grass Roots but had to change their name when the ABC Dunhill recording artists copyrighted the name. Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil played rythym guitar in the first edition of the Arthur Lee's Grass Roots.
Manson also had relationships with Columbia Records producer Terry Melcher and Dennis Wilson of the Beachboys. The Cielo Drive home in Hollywood Hills where the Tate killings took place was originally owned by Melcher and many believe that Manson targeted the house because he mistakenly thought Melcher still lived there. Just prior to the Tate killings, Melcher turned Manson down on a record contract after Mason became embroiled in a terrifying fight with a drunken stuntman at Spahn Ranch. Both Wilson and Melcher severed their ties with Manson, a move that angered Manson.
I personally think that Forever Changes was Lee's own reflection of the dark forces at work in the Los Angeles music scene during the summer of love. Lee was smart enough to distance himself from Manson early on and members of the Manson family weren't welcome guests at the Castle where Love lived. Lee thought his former guitarist Beausoleil was a very spooky dude and dismissed him from the band early on.
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