A Love-ly show with lots of fizz

Posted 23rd July 2024

Love with Johnny Echols call in at Wavendon venue The Stables as part of their annual tour, and they will be keeping the music – and the memory of frontman Arthur Lee – alive by delivering classics from the albums Love, Da Capo, Four Sail and Forever Changes.

Love formed in the mid-1960s in Los Angeles, and their exemplary catalogue of work still sounds as fresh as the day it was originally cut loose. Love co-founder and guitarist Johnny will be joined by Lee’s longest serving band, Baby Lemonade for the show.
A cracking set of musicians with the songs to match.

What will be on the setlist when they visit? Johnny took the time to share five tracks that will definitely air at the show.

Orange Skies was originally a kind of show tune written by Bryan Maclean, though his version was much different than the record. After several changes and rewrites, the song developed into a jazzy, Gary McFarland-like tune that became a fan favourite.

Seven & Seven Is is meant to be a loud, jarring, nonstop cacophony of sound, i.e. controlled chaos. Recording it was a long, loud, physically exhausting trip. Kenny was at one end of the studio and I was at the other, to keep Kenny’s bass from bleeding into the guitar track. I’ve never worked so hard on any one song, ever.

By the time we called it a day, we had done 70-plus takes and over 20 false starts.

The Red Telephone was and is one of my favourite songs, Arthur’s vocal delivery is superb.

The man’s mind was always working, even while relaxing at a Movie Theatre. We went to one of the local art cinemas to see a movie called “Marat Sade.” One of the lines in the film stuck in his mind “We’re all normal, and we want our freedom.”

That beautiful, poignant, prescient song was conceived because of one simple phrase.

Live and Let Live opens with the line, “Oh the snot has caked against my pants, it has turned into crystal” and goes on to paint a picture of a dystopian society marked by violence, mistrust, and tribalism, much like the times in which we were living.

The song rocks out with some interesting interplay between Bryan on acoustic and me on electric guitar. It also features a complex rhythmic counterpoint by Michael Stuart-Ware on drums.

You Set the Scene was actually three different songs that were never finished. Kenny Forssi did a fantastic job arranging those unfinished songs into one song. Arthur wrote some amazing, prescient, and timeless poetry, “for everyone who thinks that life is just a game, do you like the part you’re playing” is, in my opinion, one of the best song lyrics ever written.

Love with Johnny Echols play The Stables on July 31.
To book tickets visit stables.org