Bryan MacLean

The members of the Grass Roots were Lee (vocals, harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums), Johnny Echols (lead guitar, vocals), Johnny Fleckenstein (bass), Don Conka (drums), and MacLean (rhythm guitar, vocals). Despite the success of Lee and the others at the Los Angeles club, another L.A. band led by P. F. Sloan was first to record under the name the Grass Roots, which spurred Lee to change the name of his band to Love.[3]

Love in 1967 (From left to right: Johnny Echols, Bryan MacLean, Arthur Lee [top], Ken Forssi, Michael Stuart).

Jac Holzman's Elektra Records signed Love, and they had a minor hit with their version of the Bacharach/David tune "My Little Red Book" from their March 1966 debut album, Love, to which MacLean contributed the song "Softly to Me", as well as co-writing two other songs. He also contributed the Byrds' arrangement of "Hey Joe", which he performed live, singing the lead vocal on the record. Later that year, Love hit No. 33 on the US national chart with their proto-punk single "7 and 7 Is", followed by their second album in November, Da Capo, featuring MacLean's "Orange Skies".

Despite their early success, by mid-1967, Love's "classic" lineup was already falling apart, due to a combination of factors including internal tensions, complacency, lack of rehearsals, drug use, the growing creative rivalry between Lee and MacLean (MacLean was increasingly unhappy with Lee's domination of the songwriting), and Lee's refusal to tour or travel to promote their records. However, this lineup held together long enough to create their third (and final) album, Forever Changes (1967), which is considered one of the finest rock albums ever: it reached No. 40 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the Top 500 Albums of All Time (2003);[4] No. 6 on the NME's 100 Best Albums of All Time (2003) and No. 37 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2013);[5] and No. 11 on Virgin's All-Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[6] It was entered into the National Recording Registry in May 2012.[7]

Much of the credit for the completion of Forever Changes is due to co-producer Bruce Botnick. After early sessions stalled due to the group's lack of rehearsal and preparation, Botnick hired several members of the legendary L.A. session musician collective "the Wrecking Crew" to record with Lee and MacLean on two tracks, a tactic that effectively spurred the proper group back into action. After a brief period of intensive rehearsals, Love returned to the studio and completed the remaining cuts for the album in just 64 hours.

MacLean's "Alone Again Or" is the album's opening track, with MacLean and Lee providing co-lead vocals. "Alone Again Or" was the sole single released from the album to appear on the Billboard singles chart, backed with Lee's "A House Is Not a Motel". A remixed mono version of "Alone Again Or" was released as a promo single by Elektra in 1970. "Alone Again Or" initially peaked at No. 123 in 1968 in an edited version, while the longer, original album version spent three weeks on the singles chart in 1970 before peaking at No. 99, according to Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles: 1955-2010 (2011). In 2010, "Alone Again Or" came in at No. 442 in a poll of the 500 greatest songs of all time conducted by Rolling Stone magazine (it was No. 436 in the 2004 poll). It has been covered by many notable acts, including UFO, Calexico, the Damned, and a collaboration between Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs.

MacLean was offered a solo contract with Elektra after the dissolution of Love, but his demo offerings were rejected by the label and the contract lapsed. Subsequently, he wrote a film score that was not used. Thereafter, he tried without success to record an album for Capitol Records in New York. "I was alone in a hotel room in New York and I had lost practically everything", MacLean was quoted as saying. "It occurred to me that I was in a tail-spin so I thought 'hell, why don't I pray?' So I did, and nothing happened for about two or three weeks. At the end of that time, I was sitting in a drug store on 3rd Avenue having a drink, and suddenly the drink turned to sand in my mouth. I left the bar and when I reached the pavement and the daylight I knew something had changed. From that point on my life has been totally different."

Bryan joined a Christian ministry called the Vineyard, the same church that Bob Dylan later joined. During Friday night Bible readings, MacLean took the concert part of the session and was so amazed at the money he received that he gradually assembled a catalogue of his Christian songs. His next move was to open a Christian nightclub in Beverly Hills called the Daisy. When it closed in 1976, MacLean considered going full-time into the ministry but decided once again to devote himself to music.

He played an unsuccessful reunion with Lee in 1978 on two dates but wasn't paid, so he turned down an offer for a UK tour, which was to have been billed as the "original" Love. The Bryan MacLean Band got a gig supporting Lee's Love at the Whisky in 1982. MacLean also worked with his half-sister Maria McKee and wrote the song "Don't Toss Us Away" for the debut album of her band Lone Justice.

Around 1996, MacLean's Elektra Records demo tapes were discovered by his mother Elizabeth in the family garage, and after two years of persistent shopping around to record companies, a deal was struck with Sundazed, who in 1997 released the CD Ifyoubelievein.[8] In the album's liner notes, Rolling Stone's David Fricke wrote that the collection was, "in a sense, the Love record that never was: solo demos and home recordings of fourteen original MacLean songs, all written in the earliest and most vital years of Love and all but three virtually unheard in any form since MacLean wrote them".

MacLean added:

"The music that is presented in this collection was written decades ago, when I was in the band Love, and was written with that band in mind, and had been intended to be performed by, and associated with the band, Love. I firmly believe that if things had been the other way around, by now, you probably would've already heard a great deal, if not all of what is assembled here. For one thing, I would've stuck around the band a lot longer, not feeling the frustration of having such a backlog of unpublished, and unperformed material, and the natural unfulfilled desire for recognition, or even vindication."
—Liner notes of Ifyoubelievein, 1997