I’m a huge fan of Arthur Lee and Love and am always grateful for any new video I find related to Lee or his band. So, I was thrilled to find this fan-shot video of Lee performing in Greece in 2003 on his Forever Changes tour.

The video is a little wobbly but the audio is very nice indeed. “Live and Let Live.”
 

 
The immortal Arthur Lee and Love performing “Signed D.C.” on Danish TV special “A Group By The Name Of Love” that aired in July of 1970.

The concert footage is from a Love gig at Tivoli Koncertsal, Copenhagen, 12 March 1970
 

 
There’s very little information to be found on this 1991 “documentary” on Arthur Lee. The three key people involved in its creation are dead or, in the case of Crimson Crout, nowhere to be found. Directed by the mysterious Crout from a concept by Arthur Lee and compiled by Los Angeles writer, deejay and garage/punk/psychedelic promoter Frank Beeson, the video has amateur production values overall but is redeemed by laid back interviews with Lee (conducted by a barely present Beeson) and some decent live footage of Lee performing with latter day Love members Melvan Whittington and Joe Blocker as well as two members of The Knack, Bruce Gary and Berton Averre.

The film was made during Lee’s tentative re-emergence as an artist after a long dormant period during the 1980s. His return to the public eye was interrupted when he was incarcerated in 1995 for possession of a hand gun.

The live footage is taken from a series of gigs in 1989, during which Lee was regaining his footing as a performer.

The documentary, like Lee, is a bit ramshackle. The good news is that a decade after it was shot, a re-invigorated Arthur Lee returned to the stage for some of the best live shows of his incredible life, receiving the accolades he so richly deserved.

I can’t find anything on director Crimson Crout other than he released a 45rpm record in 1975 with two songs, “10,000 Years” and Redneck Ways.” John Einarson, author of the excellent Arthur Lee biography Forever Changes Arthur Lee And The Book Of Love was unable to track down the “elusive” Crout in researching his book. Who is this mystery man? Beeson?
 

 
Photo: Andy Willsher.

Love, the 1973 incarnation.
 
Arthur Lee’s lost album Black Beauty is finally receiving an official release after nearly 40 years of being in bootleg limbo. Newly launched label High Moon Records is releasing it on June 7.

Originally planned to be released by Buffalo Records in 1973, Black Beauty was shelved when the label went bankrupt. It was recorded by one of Lee’s various incarnations of his band Love: Robert Rozelle, Bass Guitar ~ Joe Blocker, Drums ~ Melvan Whittington, Lead Guitar.

High Moon founder George Wallace stated in a press release that Black Beauty is “that rarest of rock artifacts: a never-before-released, full-length studio album, from an undisputed musical genius.”

You can listen to tracks from Black Beauty here.

Fan made video of the song “Midnight Sun” from Black Beauty:

 
Via The Daily Swarm

 
Love’s 1968 single “Your Mind And We Belong Together” was Arthur Lee’s first solo outing as a producer and the last record to feature all of the band’s original members. This promo clip was directed by Mark Abramson who co-produced Love’s debut album.

For you Love fans out there, I recommend a recent biography of Arthur Lee, “Forever Changes, Arthur Lee And The Book Of Love,” by John Einarson. It includes long passages from Lee’s heretofore unpublished memoirs. For that reason alone, it’s invaluable. His recollections of working with Jimi Hendrix and encounters with The Doors are rock history from the inside. You can pick up a copy here.
 

 
As anyone lucky enough to have seen the late, great Arthur Lee in performance can tell you, it was a very special experience. I saw Arthur perform three times myself, including an early 90s gig at a biker bar in North Hollywood where the electricity went out and he did a candle-lit “unplugged” set. Pure magic. The entire audience was grinning from ear to ear. I also saw one of his initial post-prison comeback shows, an emotional triumph that saw grown men weeping tears of joy.

But sadly, as Arthur Lee and Love fans know, there is almost no footage—as in nearly none—of the original, classic Love line-up. There’s an American Bandstand lip-sync of “My Little Red Book” from 1966, but most television outlets had no use for a multi-racial rock group at the time. As with the Velvet Underground, Lee’s most vital and creative years were almost completely undocumented on film and video. Somehow it just slipped through the cracks.

However, in recent years high quality clips of Lee and a Four Sale/Out There era incarnation of Love with Gary Rowles, Frank Fayad and George Suranovich live in Copenhagen have started popping up online. Not the same musicians, save for Lee, who recorded the classic Forever Changes album, but who’s going to complain about a discovery like this? These clips come from a March 1970 Danish television special, so we know there has to be more of this material. There is also some brief B&W footage that’s surfaced of the same band at the Fillmore West that’s turned up. And (more) again, if a little of this material is known to exist, where’s the rest of it?
 

 
An interview with Arthur Lee followed by a performance of “Love Is More Than Words or Better Late Than Never” in Copenhagen, 1970.
 
More LIVE clips of Arthur Lee and Love, 1970, after the jump…

 
She Comes In Colors by Arthur Lee and Love.

Thanks, Butch!