Rhino Records: The label that saved Love from obscurity
If you weren’t around at the time of the 1960s, you’d be forgiven for making the assumption that Love were one of the most celebrated acts of the era based on the amount of praise directed towards their 1967 album, Forever Changes.
Saying that this was their only album which has attracted this level of adoration would be ignorant of the fact that its predecessor, Da Capo, has also been given plenty of plaudits over the years as well, and while there aren’t many people who would consider it to be as career-defining as Forever Changes, it still deserves to be recognised as another great achievement from a band who were consistently ahead of their time.
However, herein lies the problem that Love were faced with, and no matter how much adoration they seem to get in the modern era, that’s not how things have always been perceived. Very few people outside of specific niche circles knew about the band at the time, and while plenty of attention has come their way in recent years, it took several decades for this to even begin coming their way.
For example, the band only ever managed to scrape their way into the charts once during their initial run as a band, with ‘7 and 7 Is’ managing to land a spot at number 33 in the US in 1966. Being a commercially unsuccessful band doesn’t always necessarily mean that there was no love for them in the underground scene, but in the case of Love, they remained obscure.
It didn’t help their case that they were initially reluctant to perform live shows outside of their native California, and while there’s a significant amount of cultural importance placed on music from within the state, spreading themselves further would no doubt have helped them to gain more notoriety on a national or even international level.
These issues, coupled with the fact that tensions between band members were often high, with frontman and leader Albert Lee clashing heads with guitarist Bryan MacLean over the decision-making process, and original drummer Donnie Conca having struggled with substance abuse issues over the years, meant that there were plenty of obstacles sitting in the way of the band ever reaching higher levels of success.
If it wasn’t for the existence of Rhino, a lifebuoy of a label who specialise in reissuing cult classics, they wouldn’t have ever had this renewed interest in them, and when their co-founder, Harold Bronson, reached out to Lee in 1980 in the interest of compiling a best-of compilation of the band’s work, and it was this decision that prompted a sudden influx of interest from fans and critics.
Forever Changes now exists not just as a cult classic, but is perceived as one of the greatest albums ever recorded, and who knows what might have happened to love had they received this sort of attention at the time of its release. Producer Paul Rothschild was convinced that their work wouldn’t sell, and Lee’s stubbornness often stood in the way of them ever gaining attention, but in spite of these flaws, Bronson said that Lee called him “the most honest man in the record business,” something that helped them establish a strong relationship with the label.
There isn’t always justice in the world, but for Love to have received their flowers thanks to a series of reissues and a newly-formed deal with Rhino signals that good things can certainly happen to those who wait.
