User:PianoUpMyNose/Albums

= Odessey and Oracle =

Background
The Zombies' debut single, "She's Not There",

Composition
Music critic Matthew Greenwald describes "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" as "[e]asily one of the strangest and most experimental songs that the Zombies ever attempted". the Battle of Somme, which White's uncle was killed in.

Conflict with Elektra
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. According to author Barney Hoskyns, the album "trumpeted the presence of a major new musical force on the LA scene". It was also a pivotal release for Elektra Records, giving them their first rock album as well as their first hit single; however, the band quickly grew dissatisfied with the label's production and promotional efforts. 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".

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

"7 and 7 Is" and lineup changes
On June 17 and 20, Love recorded their second single, "7 and 7 Is". 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." Despite being a creative success, however, the song's recording sessions, held at Sunset Sound Recorders with Holzman producing and Bruce Botnick engineering, were the last to feature the five-piece lineup of the debut album. 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."

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. During that same time, the band decided to make some changes to their lineup for their second album. 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. 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". Lee then recruited Tjay Cantrelli (born John Barberis), a jazz saxophonist and flautist whom he had crossed paths with in the early 1960s, bringing the band to a seven-piece.

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. 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."

Recording and production
The sessions for Da Capo began at RCA Victor's studio at 6363 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Echols suggested that the change in studio was due to Sunset Sound being occupied by label-mates the Doors. Andrew Sandoval writes that the new environment provided Love "the right atmosphere" for their new material. Botnick was unable to engineer the sessions due to the change, so the job was instead done by Dave Hassinger, whose "sonic mastery", Sandoval continues, "gave the group further confidence in their work." Echols reported positive recollections of the setting: "Everything was relaxed in there ... It wasn't uptight at RCA as it was at Sunset Sounds. Several times we had fistfights at Sunset Sound, 'cause it was a small kind of claustrophobic type of place. The atmosphere and the people – Bruce and all of that – just was not conductive in the way RCA was with Dave Hassinger."

Paul A. Rothchild, who had just finished the sessions for the Doors' self-titled debut album in August 1966, was brought in produce Da Capo. The group had been impressed with his previous work and that he had spent time in prison for cannabis possession shortly beforehand. Echols and Botnick both acknowledged that his "no-nonsense" style of producing helped control Lee's often commanding studio presence. Echols said that Lee "could be like a kid, trying to get away with whatever he could. Jac let Arthur get away with that and let him run around. Rothchild wasn't like that. He expected us to pay attention to him, and we did." Holzman praised Rothchild's work, saying that "Da Capo was an artistic stretch, and I think a lot of the reach on that album was provided by Paul." "There's a fair amount of Paul Rothchild on that album", remarked Botnick.

According to Echols, most of the songs on Da Capo "were rewritten and rearranged in the studio", which resulted in them "eating up time in that place". Lee, the band's principal songwriter, presented his new songs by playing the basic chord progressions on his black Gibson acoustic guitar and singing the lyrics. Each member then wrote their own parts, with Lee making suggestions along the way; however, Pfisterer, who was unable to improvise, said that Lee hummed or sang what he wanted him to play.

Despite Lee's new songs, the first track attempted, on September 27, was rhythm guitarist and secondary songwriter Bryan MacLean's song "Orange Skies". Echols recalled tensions flaring during the session over Cantrelli's flute part: "they kept threatening to call Herbie Mann in because Tjay could not get this part right simply because we were out of tune ... we tuned up to this harpsichord and the harpsichord was off ... They thought it was his fault". The next three days were dedicated to Lee's songs "¡Que Vida!", "She Comes in Colors", and "The Castle", respectively. On October 2, the band recorded "Stephanie Knows Who" before returning to Sunset Sound to finish the album with the side-long track "Revelation". The album was then mixed by Botnick, who felt that Hassinger "made Love sound different than I did" and wanted to ensure that "there would be no differentiation between [his] work and my work."

Overview
The initial concept of Da Capo was a return to the music that Lee and Echols had played before forming Love, described by Echols as blues in the style of Booker T. & the M.G.'s; however, Sandoval writes that the finished album instead "moved onto places unpaved in pop music." The additions of Stuart and Cantrelli allowed the band to incorporate jazz into their style, and as such it was described by contemporary commentators as jazz rock, several years before the genre became well-established. Although Lee would also describe the band's sound during this period as jazz rock, he was initially dismissive of the label, saying in a 1967 interview: "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." Echols termed the sound "free-form rock" or "free-form fusion" and cited John Coltrane as an influence. MacLean thought of the album as "the ultimate of what I call show-tune rock".

Influence
Botnick said of Da Capo 's immediate influence on the local music scene: "Next thing I know, I'm doing jazz albums. Everyone's got the Love record and they're going, 'This is cool; maybe we should introduce some of these ideas into our music. Lenny Helsing of It's Psychedelic Baby! Magazine regards the album as "a pivotal piece of modern rock innovation" and notes that the influence of "freeform patterns" on songs such as "Revelation" can be heard on Syd Barrett's contemporary work with Pink Floyd. Spevack writes that although subsequent "jazz rock giants" such as Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Steely Dan, and Traffic, among others, did not specifically cite Da Capo as an influence, "the innovation Love brought to the rock table helped open up the genre for any hybrid to be served."

It is widely believed that the Rolling Stones drew inspiration from "She Comes in Colors" for their 1967 song "She's a Rainbow" – containing the line "She comes in colours everywhere" in the chorus – after seeing Love perform at the Whisky the previous autumn. Botnick said that this greatly bothered Lee, who "wouldn't stop talking" about it. As of 2021, no Stones members had publicly acknowledged the songs' similarities. Lee also believed that the "John Lee Hooker" jam inspired the Stones' 11-minute track "Goin' Home" from their April 1966 album Aftermath, and said that when he heard it he "almost cried ... because I'd been doing that trip two years before that came out". However, Einarson says it is more likely that the bands conceived these songs independently.

Retrospective assessment
Retrospectively, Da Capo has continued to receive positive to mixed reviews, with many criticizing "Revelation" as a filler track that does not hold up to the sophistication of the album's first side. Segretto called the album "frustrating" due to it not living up to its "tremendous promise." He said that side one "may be the best run of Love songs the band ever recorded" and that the album as a whole could have been their best if side two "had some songs on it". The album has since been described by various commentators as "half a masterpiece", "half a genuine classic", and "the ultimate one sider."

Da Capo has been largely overshadowed by Love's third album Forever Changes, widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. According to Spevack, many listeners who have given Forever Changes that title also consider Da Capo to be "the perfect album side", and that the decision to devote the entire other side to "Revelation" has resulted in Love "only having one universally beloved masterpiece LP and not two." Hoskyns writes that if side two continued the style of side one, the album "would probably rank alongside Forever Changes as a Summer of Love classic." Conversely, Helsing considers the dismissal of Da Capo in favor of its more acclaimed successor to be "lazy criticism" and declares Da Capo "every bit as innovative, clever, insightful, deliciously dangerous and experimental (perhaps even more so … )"