89: LOVE
She Comes In Colors/ Orange Skies
(Elektra, 1966)

FOR the briefest period - until their thunder was summarily stolen by The Doors, for any number of reasons - Arthur Lee and Love absolutely ruled over the Los Angeles demi-monde.

They were the first multi-racial band to hit the scene, for one thing, and the drop-dead cool Arthur Lee was already turning heads in the street with his unique appearance - boots with no laces, diamond-shaped shades with two different coloured lenses.

More to the point, they had the songs. Between Lee and former Byrds roadie Bryan MacLean, they boasted a set of ever-evolving treasures which ran the gamut from combative, chin-jutting proto-punk (My Flash On You, Can't Explain) to sophisticated Latino soul (Softly To Me, Message To Pretty).

By the time they came to record their second album Da Capo, Love's constantly fluctuating line-up had expanded to a seven-piece chiefly notable for the input of flautist/saxophonist Tjay Cantrelli. The songs which Lee and MacLean were writing were becoming more melodically ambitious and, in Lee's case, lyrically inimitable and audacious, and were well suited to an expanded sonic palette.

Released in December 1966, the She Comes In Colors/Orange Skies single threw together two of the most immediately accessible tracks from the album, both graced by Cantrelli's high-flying flute lines. MacLean's Orange Skies was gushingly melodic and tender, while Lee's She Comes In Colors was obliquely penetrating:
"A thought in my head, I think
Of something to do;
Expressions tell everything
I see one on you..."
 The next stop was of course Forever Changes, Love's bid for immortality which belatedly achieved that very end: too late for MacLean, alas, but just in time to see out Lee's final years in a measure of grace.