Love - Forever Changes Poll

Weird...for some reason, I remember seeing him credited with "lead guitar" on one song, but can't remember where I saw that. Also, wikipedia sez Jim Gordon played drums on "The Daily Planet," but I coulda sworn it was Hal Blaine (sounds more like Blaine anyway).

The sessions began in June 1967, with the group (except for Lee and Maclean) replaced by well-known Los Angeles session musicians Billy Strange (guitar), Don Randi (piano), Hal Blaine (drums) and most likely Carol Kaye (bass). This studio line-up was put in place due to the regular line-up's alleged inability to function. The two tracks recorded during these sessions, "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet", were later given sparing overdubs by the actual members of Love, who felt the tracks otherwise sufficed.
Botnick recalls that the use of session musicians "sparked" the band, and they "realized they had blown it, got their act together and recorded the rest of the album". After much rehearsal, the group resumed work in August and continued through September, quickly laying down the remaining nine tracks, with a total estimated cost at $2,257.

i think i read an interview with carol kaye where someone asked her if she played on forever changes and she just laughed and said "honey i played on a lot of records." she may have also claimed to be the bass player on most of the buffalo springfield records!

Not sure about Blaine or Jim Gordon, I thought the band played on all the tracks after they'd stopped crying and straightened themselves up (for the duration of the recording of the album that is, then it was back to bad habits after it) (xxp)

"Listen Echols, I don’t understand how you can stay in one range through the whole thing. You’re the one who says you can blow in the studio, man."

xxp

Ah, so that's where I read it: further up on the wikipedia page! It's confusingly contradicted by listing Gordon further down, but it definitely sounds like Blaine.

guess both of those guys would be contenders for LA session drummers at the time.

Didn't know about Kaye's claim to have played on the Springfield's records...then again, she also claimed to have been the bassist on all the Motown hits, despite mountains of evidence and documentation to the contrary.

yeah should be taken with a grain of salt. i know she played on some of those records -- "expecting to fly" for sure.

For a laugh there's Plastic Nancy
She's real fancy with her children
They'll go far, she
Buys them toys to
Keep in practice
Waiting on the war

o_O

That Arthurly could sure write a lyric

I FEEL REAL PHONY WHEN MY NAME IS PHIL

or is that bill?

And "Red Telephone" even did the "...count me out (in)" a year before "Revolution 1"

This is such a damn fine album.

One thing I learned in the last year is that "Alone Again Or" is amazingly straightforward to play on guitar. I had thought it would be some fingerpicked jazz chord nightmare but it's really only 4-5 standard chords and arpeggios. So satisfying to sit down with my limited skills and rip it out.

No capo involved?

It's that "EChord" moved up a fret and back again, yeah? The easy "sounds a bit Spanish" strum.

The Phrygian Dominant? To get fancy.

It's a great album, but one I've maybe played too much at this point. There's really only 'Alone Again Or', 'The Daily Planet' and 'The Red Telephone' that I can listen to without wanting to skip it these days.

I've overplayed it too, but don't single out any particular tracks either way.

Sorry, just to complete the guitar nerd arc, it's not a shifting E chord exactly. The opening is picking D, D sus 2, D sus 4 (top E melody line runs 2-3-5-3-2-0-2-3-2-0-3-2), then arpeggio F#m barre chord with, then without the barre. Verse is barre F#, G, F#, open Em, A, D, Bm, barre F#, G, then alternate between open A, all open strings 4 times and back to open D!

love this album. but alone again or is such an obvious choice! second and third place tracks are pretty great

then arpeggio F#m barre chord with, then without the barre
What do you mean by without the barre? I thought I heard an Em9 in there when I just tried to play it seconds ago, i.e. an open E min chord with an F# in the D string.

I mean arpeggio 244222 then 044000, I may be wrong but it sounds convincing to me.

No you are probably right

I mean that is the same chord I was talking about but with a C# on the A string, which makes in even stronger. I guess you could call it in Em13.

"an" not "in"

You're right of course. I was just surprised I could play the thing.

Yeah, I never even bothered to try until last night after you mentioned it.

Do wish somebody would discover some live audio material from this time or earlier. Sounds from reading Michael Stuart Ware that Lee was pretty down on anybody he found recording him though.
Would have been really something if they'd played Monterey and there was footage. Looked for ages as though lee would just pull out of prestige performances without much warning. I think Stuart Ware talks about last minute cancellation of playing in Atlanta or Texas.

There's a fantastic long interview with John Ecchols in an Ugly Things from about 3 years back. In which he places a mixed race band more firmly in its time. Its about as revelatory as the Arthur lee memoir collected as John Einarson's Forever Changes book.

Michael Stuart Ware was the drummer who had also been in Sons of Adam and he wrote a book about a decade back called Behind The Scenes at The Pegasus Carousel which has since been updated. I haven't read the update.

Very interesting thanks.

top E melody line runs 2-3-5-3-2-0-2-3-2-0-3-2

Not to get finger-nit-picky but I hear, and definitely play, 2-3-5-5-5-3-2-3-2-3-2

I think ledge is right. It lingers longer on the A and there is no E melody note played.

I also do more travis picking than simple arpeggios and throw in a couple of hammer-ons in there, I'd like to say it's my interpretation but it's what the guy I learnt from on youtube did.

Yeah mine was just me thinking it out from memory and I fudge that bit anyway I think.

i wonder who'll it be tomorrow, you or me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXpXw_DUMxg

<3

just passed 50th anniv about a week back

and it still sounds as great as ever

this is the time in life when i am living, and i'll face each day with a smile, for the time that i've been given's such a little while, and the things that i must do consist of more than style

\m/

Undying respect and Love for this album

The very same, as well as undying respect for Love in general... Personally, I spin Love, Da Capo and Four Sail as often as Forever Changes ... particularly Four Sail, which I still think is painfully underrated.

The people of clark and hilldale were robbed

You know, I see a lot of people that like Four Sail, actually. I am certainly one of them!

Out Here has a lot of really good songs comparable to those on Four Sail also.

I've gotta listen to Four Sail right this second.

False Start is another great one, with The Everlasting First belonging in the top rank of their oeuvre. Featuring a killer guitar solo by Jimi Hendrix.

i like robert montgomery off four sail

anyway, happy birthday forever changes xx

is it Johnny Echols who plays the solo on "Live and Let Live"?