Biography
To ensure ongoing mix-ups for record catalogers and enthusiasts of 1960s music, the singer-songwriter Arthur Lee Harper chose to appear simply as Arthur without a surname on his debut LP, Dreams and Images, released in 1968, before switching to his full name for the follow-up and final effort, Love Is the Revolution, issued the next year. The same performer stands behind both releases and shares no link whatsoever with the better-known Arthur Lee who fronted the band Love. As a folk-rock artist in the late 1960s, Arthur, or Arthur Lee Harper, delivered understated performances of melancholy numbers that conveyed anxious doubt along with modest touches of self-absorption and detachment. His slender, elevated vocal tone drifted so far upward that it approached territory more typical of female singers; a comparable, nearly feminine timbre from the same era belongs to the equally little-known Bert Sommer. In certain ways the albums functioned as subdued, acoustic-leaning echoes of the lavishly arranged Baroque pop produced by the early Bee Gees, though they fell short of that standard and their restrained manner made those late-1960s Bee Gees tracks seem comparatively bold and assertive. Dreams and Images received modest circulation thanks to its placement on Lee Hazlewood’s LHI imprint, whereas Love Is the Revolution, issued as a private pressing, reached even fewer listeners. The original LPs offered limited merit overall, yet both were paired together for a single-CD reissue that appeared in 2002 on the Papa’s Choice label.
Albums