Arthur Lee & Love’s classic Blue Thumb label recordings finally reissued – along with an hour of unreleased live material!

 

Arthur Lee’s untimely passing in 2006 was felt in the hearts, minds and ears of music lovers. While their Elektra recordings tend to garner the most print, their recordings for the Blue Thumb label not only carried on that tradition, but ushered Lee and company into the next decade—and rock & roll history.

 

Hip-O Select is proud to present Love: The Blue Thumb Recordings – a collection of Love’s first two post-Elektra releases and a previously unreleased live set from their 1970 tour of England. This three-CD set contains over 2 & 1/2 hours of Love – including nearly an hour of never-before-heard live material!

 

The collection begins with 1969’s Out Here – which is, in reality, the remainder of the sessions used for 1969’s classic Four Sail. Recorded after the release of Love’s seminal Forever Changes, this release (originally a double-album) is an integral part of the Love catalog. While Lee delivered Elektra the necessary tracks to complete their contract (note the Four Sail title and its dual meaning), the remainder of those highly prolific sessions produced over an hour of extra material, which was released as Out Here. With tracks ranging from one minute to nearly twelve minutes in length, Out Here shows the band at a creative peak.

 

The band followed this release with False Start. Another masterpiece, the album was written and arranged by Lee, with the exception of its opening track –“The Everlasting First” – on which he co-wrote and shared arrangement credits with Jimi Hendrix. If that wasn’t enough, Hendrix contributed lead guitar work recorded just six months before his tragic death. Out of print for years, False Start (like Out Here) bursts from the speakers with stunning audio remastering by noted engineer Suha Gur.

 

Perhaps the jewel in the crown is a collection of live tracks from the band’s 1970 tour of the U.K. Titled Live In England 1970, this set’s third disc encompasses soaring versions of songs from the band’s career including “My Little Red Book,” “Orange Skies” and Forever Changes’ “Andmoreagain.” Hiding in the vaults for nearly four decades, these performances are truly a revelation and must be heard to be believed.

 

Produced by Grammy® -winning producer Bill Levenson, Love: The Blue Thumb Recordings is an indispensable document of one of rock’s most important bands, and one of music’s greatest voices. Housed in Select’s exquisite packaging, Love: The Blue Thumb Recordings is the bookmark to the end of the 1960’s and the entry into the next decade for a band that is required listening for Rock & Roll 101.