Product Description

Arthur Lee's band, Love, is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential groups of the late sixties. Led by Lee through a tempestuous history of dissolution and resurrections, their psychedelic-folk masterpiece, Forever Changes, regularly appears high in polls of the greatest albums of all time. Recent times, however, have not been so kind: in 1996, Lee was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and also received a twelve-year sentence for threatening his neighbors with a gun. Including interviews with Lee himself and guitarist Bryan Maclean, among many others, this fascinating tale reveals the dark side of the Summer of Love -- heroin, crime, and bitter ego battles -- while also tracking Lee's musical career through the post-Love years to his recent incarceration in a U.S. jail.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1016346 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

What was the point?
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!

no new information
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.

Severly Disappointing
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).