Da Capo (Love album)

In March 1966, Love's self-titled debut album, along with the single "My Little Red Book", was released to moderate commercial success, reaching number 57 on the Billboard Top LPs.[1] According to author Barney Hoskyns, the album "trumpeted the presence of a major new musical force on the LA scene".[2] It was also a pivotal release for Elektra Records, giving them their first rock album as well as their first hit single;[3] however, the band quickly grew dissatisfied with the label's production and promotional efforts.[4] In an attempt to get off the label, bandleader Arthur Lee revealed that when he had signed the recording contract on January 4, 1966, he was not yet 21 years old, making the agreement void. This infuriated Elektra president Jac Holzman, who later said: "That was the point in my relationship with Arthur where he moved from being a scoundrel to being totally dishonest ... He said he wasn't making a second album, which meant [if he'd carried out this threat] that Da Capo wouldn't have happened".[5]

An addendum to the contract was made, dated April 25, which gave the band $2,500 in cash[5] and an increase in their royalty rate from 5 to 7 percent;[6] however, it also required them to produce 20 more recordings for Elektra to be released on future albums.[7] Lee later claimed that he also demanded 100% of the publishing rights, but Holzman said this was never agreed on.[6] The contract was then notarized on May 6 to prevent further issues regarding the members' ages;[8] Holzman also ensured that a photocopy of Lee's driver's license was stapled to the document.[9]

On June 17 and 20, Love recorded their second single, "7 and 7 Is".[10] The song was a radical departure from the band's original folk rock sound; biographer John Einarson writes that it was "like nothing anyone had either conceived or heard before ... a loud, aggressive, no-holds-barred, garage-style punk song, a decade before that musical term was current."[11] Despite being a creative success, however, the song's recording sessions, held at Sunset Sound Recorders with Holzman producing and Bruce Botnick engineering,[12] were the last to feature the five-piece lineup of the debut album.[10] Due to drummer Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer's limited abilities, he and Lee took turns attempting the song's intense drum part. Pfisterer later said: "The session was a nightmare ... I had blisters on my fingers. I don't know how many times I tried to play that damn thing and it just wasn't coming out. Arthur would try it; then I'd try it. Finally I got it. He couldn't do it."[13]

Released in July, "7 and 7 Is" spent ten weeks climbing the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 33 and becoming the highest-charting single of the band's career.[14] During that same time, the band decided to make some changes to their lineup for their second album.[15] Reluctant to fire Pfisterer, Lee instead elected to move him over to keyboards – organ, piano, and harpsichord – as he had been classically trained as a child.[16] To replace him on drums, Lee hired Michael Stuart – formerly of the Sons of Adam, who had occasionally opened for Love and had a local hit with one of Lee's songs, "Feathered Fish".[17] Lee then recruited Tjay Cantrelli (born John Barberis[18]), a jazz saxophonist and flautist whom he had crossed paths with in the early 1960s, bringing the band to a seven-piece.[19]

On Stuart's first day with the group, Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols brought him to Elektra's offices where, unbeknownst to him, they had planned another attempt to end their commitment with the label.[20] Stuart recalls the encounter in his 2003 autobiography Behind the Scenes on the Pegasus Carousel with the Legendary Rock Group LOVE:

Arthur said [to the executive], "I want to talk to you about releasing us from out commitment to Elektra. You really don't have the capacity to be able to handle our group. What do we have to do to get off the label?" And Johnny said, "Yeah, and your records are made cheaply. Look, you can't do this with any other record," and he took out the vinyl and snapped it in half, throwing it down on the desk. The guy laughed and told them they weren't getting out of their commitment. He said "You owe us three more albums." We walked out.[21]

Author William E. Spevack sees Da Capo as an album of varying styles, with each song being a "portrait of a subgenre of rock."[31] According to authors Barney Hoskyns and Robert Dimery, the music on side one incorporates the stylistic influences of psychedelia, baroque pop, jazz, Latin music, and proto-punk.[32] The track "Revelation", which occupies all of side two, combines rock, blues, rhythm and blues, psychedelia, jazz, and classical.[33] Mike Segretto writes that side one "bridges" the garage rock of Love's first album and the "more refined" sound of their next one, Forever Changes; however, "[s]ince those albums are so diametrically unlike, Da Capo sounds totally different from either of them."[34] Segretto also says that the album "pushed Love's hard rock as far as it could go. They could never make a wilder recording than '7 and 7 Is' or a more indulgent one than 'Revelations.' [sic]"[34] Despite Lee's efforts to remove the band from folk rock, critic Richie Unterberger says that the genre is "still evident in the guitar riffs of pretty songs like 'The Castle' and 'She Comes in Colors'".[35]

Da Capo is one of the earliest albums to be described as jazz rock,[36] years before the genre was widely established.[37] Lee attributed the album's jazz influences to him listening to Miles Davis at the time.[38] Although Lee would also come to describe the band's style during this period as jazz rock,[20] he was initially dismissive of the label, saying in a contemporary interview with Hit Parader: "People who listen to music today would probably call it 'jazz rock' but I don't call it that. It's free music. We have to choose material that will fit this group and that's free music. We don't want any patterns; we go completely against the book."[39] Echols cited John Coltrane as an influence on the band's sound, which he termed "free-form fusion."[20] Spevack notes that the album Out of Sight and Sound by the Free Spirits, often considered the first jazz rock record, was released about a month after Da Capo.[36]

Lyrically, Spevack says that Lee "found his voice" on Da Capo, with his "abstract phrases and intelligent theories" being "light years ahead of his lyrics from just a few months earlier."[36] Author Mick Houghton regards Lee's autobiographical lyrics as a "preface" to Forever Changes.[40] The softer songs on Da Capo, namely "Orange Skies" and "The Castle", mark the first appearances of Lee's smoother vocal tone – dubbed "acid-Mathis" by the press – which would continue to be a feature through Forever Changes, Four Sail, and Out Here.[41]

Lee's inspiration for "Stephanie Knows Who" came from Stephanie Buffington, a young woman whom he and MacLean were both interested in dating.[42] The opening build-up between Pfisterer's harpsichord and MacLean's fingerpicked guitar offers an immediate "marked contrast" from Love's debut album, according to Einarson.[43] The song employs a shifting meter, as the foundation of 3/4 alternates with 4/4 in the transition section and moves to 5/4 for the saxophone solo.[44] Spevack writes that "Lee's relationship lyrics are now layered and denser, lacking any easy linear meanings" and recognizes his raucous vocal performance as "surprisingly poetic" due to him "manipulating the lines to read more artistically than a typical yelling rant."[45] The song was issued as a single in November 1966, backed with "Orange Skies", but was quickly withdrawn and replaced with "She Comes in Colors" in December.[46] A small amount of these original versions were pressed and are sought after by record collectors.[47]

MacLean claimed that "Orange Skies" was the first song he ever wrote,[48] dating it back to 1965.[49] He was working as a roadie for the Byrds at the time and was inspired by Roger McGuinn's guitar solo from "The Bells of Rhymney".[50] Echols recalled MacLean's original version of the song being "much too choppy and 'show tune-ish' for us to record. So after a lot of changes and rewrites, the song developed into a jazzy, Gary McFarland-like tune, which was in keeping with the tenor of the album as a whole".[51] It is the only song MacLean wrote for Love that he did not also sing on,[50] as it was ultimately decided to be better suited for Lee's voice.[49] With lyrics describing fun in the summertime,[52] Sandoval deems the song "easily the breeziest piece in Love's catalog".[50] Released as the B-sides of "Stephanie Knows Who" and "She Comes in Colors", Echols said that "Orange Skies" "got quite a bit of airplay in Los Angeles" and that the band "thought it would've probably taken off" had they received more promotion from Elektra.[50]

Spevack describes Lee's "¡Que Vida!" as a "Latin-tinged" pop song.[53] Stuart called it "early ska", while Echols characterized the chords as having "an airy Brazilian sound."[54] Critic Matthew Greenwald compares the bossa nova rhythm to the contemporary work of Antônio Carlos Jobim.[55] Although it is the longest song on side one, it has the simplest structure, comprising only four verses and a brief break section.[56] The track also features sound effects – pulled from Elektra's extensive sound library – of a Champagne cork popping and sleigh bells.[57] Lyrically, Segretto says that "¡Que Vida!" is "as reflective as anything on Forever Changes"[34] and Chapman observes that it is "the first of many Lee songs that [end] in quiet menace and unsettling incantation."[58] It was released as a single in March 1967, backed with the band's version of "Hey Joe" from their debut album,[59] but due to little promotion it became their rarest Elektra single.[60]

Lee composed "7 and 7 Is" at the Colonial Apartments in Hollywood, originally as a folk song in the style of Bob Dylan.[61] The title was inspired by Lee's high school girlfriend Anita Billings, as they shared a birthday of March 7.[11] The lyrics describe his domestic life as a child.[62] As the band experimented in the studio with effects such as feedback and fuzz bass, attempting to capture a "controlled chaos" sound, the song evolved into what Spevack deems "one of the 1960s most explosively aggressive songs."[63] The track climaxes with a sound effect of an atomic explosion, although Botnick said it may have been a gunshot slowed down.[64] Afterwards, the song ends with a bluesy coda adapted from "Sleep Walk" by Santo & Johnny.[64] Among the earliest rock songs to influence punk, "7 and 7 Is" is often regarded as Love's greatest performance.[63]

"The Castle" is another song that was inspired by Lee's relationship with Stephanie Buffington.[65] The title came from the mansion the group shared in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.[60] Although the lyrics are sparse, consisting of only three brief verses, the band fills out the song with an unusual structure, including an extended instrumental conclusion that features two false endings.[66] Sandoval calls the song "a signpost to the acoustic gentleness (and eventually the dissonant creepiness) of Forever Changes."[67]

According to Echols, "She Comes in Colors" was inspired by another one of Lee's girlfriends,[68] named Annette Ferrel,[57] who "would always wear bright, colorful clothing".[68] Lee later claimed that the title referred to a woman's menstrual cycle; however, Sandoval says that the seriousness of this is unknown.[60] Echols also remembered it being "the most difficult song that we did" due to its "strange" chords.[60] The structure of the guitar intro – beginning softly and building up when hitting the chorus – anticipates alternative rock of the 1990s.[69] The song was released as a single in December 1966,[70] replacing "Stephanie Knows Who" as the A-side of "Orange Skies".[47] Although it received heavy airplay in Los Angeles, making the local charts, it failed to appear on the Hot 100.[71] Retrospectively, Unterberger views the song as "perhaps Lee's best composition".[72]

"Revelation" originated as a jam called "John Lee Hooker" in the band's early live sets.[73] According to Echols, these performances would contain multiple solos and sometimes last for an hour.[74] The controversial decision to devote the entire second side of Da Capo to it has been the subject of much speculation. One rumor is that Lee was holding back his songs from Elektra as a form of revenge for not allowing the band to break their contract with them, although Botnick denied this, saying that it was simply "very popular to do long songs at the time." Echols explained that "[i]t was really down to Elektra not giving us enough time. ... If we had been able to record more, we would have had a different album".[75]

The band recorded 45 minutes of the jam which Rothchild then edited.[76] Pfisterer's harpsichord part, quoting a Partita by Johann Sebastian Bach, was spliced onto the beginning and end of the track.[76] The song features soloing from Lee (on harmonica), Echols, Cantrelli, and Stuart.[77] It was the only song on the album that the band disliked in retrospect:[73] Stuart thought it was "a piece of shit" and "a waste of a side of an album",[76] while Lee called it "the worst fucking song I've ever done in my life."[78]

The 2002 CD reissue of Da Capo contains both mono and stereo mixes of the album, as well as the following bonus track:[89][108]

15. "7 and 7 Is (Tracking session)" – 3:13