Love (Love album)

Love
Studio album by Love
Released	March 1966
Recorded	December 1965, January 24–27, 1966
Genre	Psychedelic rock, folk rock, baroque pop, garage rock, protopunk[1]
Length	33:53
Label	Elektra
Producer	Mark Abramson Jac Holzman Arthur Lee
Love chronology
Love (1966) Da Capo (1966)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Piero Scaruffi	(6.5/10)[2]

Love is the eponymous debut by the Los Angeles-based rock band Love. Twelve of the album's fourteen tracks were recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood on January 24–27, 1966. The remaining two tracks ("A Message To Pretty" and "My Flash On You") come from another, undocumented session.

One of the first rock albums issued on then-folk giant Elektra Records, the album begins with the group's radical reworking of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David song "My Little Red Book", the title of which is likely a tongue-in-cheek reference to Mao Zedong's Little Red Book (which was first published by the Communist Party of China in April 1964), and which features a guitar line that Syd Barrett altered considerably (although not unrecognizably so) in writing his own "Interstellar Overdrive", released on Pink Floyd's album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The album also features "Signed D.C." (allegedly a reference to one-time Love drummer Don Conka), and the poignant "A Message to Pretty". The stark instrumental "Emotions" is used uncredited in Haskell Wexler's 1969 film Medium Cool as a recurring theme.

"My Little Red Book" was featured over the final credits of the movie High Fidelity in 2000, and the Beverly Hills 90210 episode "Alone at the Top" in 1995.^[3]

Track listing

• Note: The 2001 CD issue presents both stereo and monaural mixes and adds as bonus tracks an alternate take of "Signed DC" and "No. Fourteen", the B-side to the "7 and 7 Is" single.

Personnel

• Arthur Lee: Lead vocals, percussion, and harmonica. Also drums on "Can't Explain", "No Matter What You Do", "Gazing", "Mushroom Clouds" and "And More".
• Johnny Echols: Lead guitar
• Bryan MacLean: Rhythm guitar and vocals. Lead vocals on "Softly to Me" and "Hey Joe".
• Ken Forssi: Bass
• Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer: Drums

with:

According to the box set Love Story, the tracks "A Message To Pretty" and "My Flash On You" may feature John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums in place of Forssi and Pfisterer.

Singles from album

• My Little Red Book/A Message To Pretty (Elektra 45603)
• No. Fourteen (from these sessions, B side of "7 & 7 Is" - Elektra 45605)
• Hey Joe (B side to rare "Que Vida!" single - Elektra 45613)

Notes