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Da Capo is the second studio album by the American rock band Love, released in November 1966 by Elektra Records. The album was recorded between September and October 1966 at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California.

This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (October 2022)

Da Capo
Studio album by Love
Released	November 1966 (1966-11)
Recorded	September – October 1966
Studio	Sunset Sound and RCA Studios, Hollywood
Genre	Psychedelia hard rock jazz rock
Length	35:54
Label	Elektra
Producer	Paul A. Rothchild Jac Holzman
Love chronology
Love (1966) Da Capo (1966) Forever Changes (1967)
Singles from Da Capo
"7 and 7 Is" / "No. Fourteen" Released: July 1966 "Stephanie Knows Who" / "Orange Skies" Released: November 1966 "She Comes in Colors" / "Orange Skies" Released: December 1966 "¡Que Vida!" / "Hey Joe" Released: March 1967

Background

Conflict with Elektra

In March 1966, Love's eponymous debut album, along with the single "My Little Red Book", was released to moderate commercial success.[1] According to author Barney Hoskyns, the album "trumpeted the presence of a major new musical force" on the Los Angeles scene.[2] One month after the album's release, bandleader Arthur Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols felt dissatisfied with their label Elektra Records. The company was fairly new to the world of rock music, and both Lee and Echols felt that they did not know how to properly promote albums or present rock bands to the public.[3] Sensing interest from larger labels with national distribution and bigger promotional budgets, Lee revealed that when he had signed the contract with Elektra on January 4, 1966, he was not yet 21 years old and therefore not legally of age, thus making the agreement void.[4] 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".[4]

An addendum to Love's contract was made, dated April 25, and notarized on May 6, which provided an immediate cash payment of $2,500,[4] as well as an increased royalty rate from 5 to 7 percent.[5] A clause was also added requiring 20 more recordings from the band, thereby protecting Elektra's interests by binding the group to subsequent albums.[6] The presence of a notary ensured that there would be no more issues regarding the members' ages—each member had to state their date of birth[6] and Holzman made sure their driver's licenses were photocopied and stapled to the document.[1]

"7 and 7 Is" and lineup changes

By mid-1966, Lee felt that Love needed to "restart" their sound and abandon the folk rock their music had embodied up to that point.[8] In June, the band showed great advances in their musical development with the recording of the loud and aggressive proto-punk rocker "7 and 7 Is".[9] Writer John Einarson says that the song was "like nothing anyone had either conceived or heard before" and proved that Lee was eager to explore new musical approaches.[10] However, despite being a creative success, the recording sessions for "7 and 7 Is"—held on June 17 and 20 at Sunset Sound Recorders with Holzman producing and Bruce Botnick engineering—were infamously tumultuous and marked the first time tensions flared within the band.[11] Due to the group's general frustration with drummer Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer's playing, he and Lee took turns trying to accomplish the song's intense polyrhythmic drum part.[12] "The session was a nightmare," Pfisterer stressed. "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] Although Lee claimed in many interviews that he played on the final version, he would later admit that it was indeed Pfisterer who appeared on it.[12] Regardless, the fiasco indicated that Love would need a higher-skilled drummer to accommodate their quickly changing sound.[12]

"7 and 7 Is" was released in July 1966 as the band's second single, backed with the playfully titled "No. Fourteen" which had been recorded during the debut album sessions.[14] It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on July 30, and over the next ten weeks it climbed to number 33 on the chart,[15] making it the most commercially successful single of the band's career.[16] Over the same ten-week period, the group made a huge stylistic shift in preparation for recording their second album.[15] Reluctant to fire Pfisterer, and aware that he had been classically trained as a child, Lee decided to move him over to harpsichord and organ and hired Michael Stuart, formerly of the garage rock band the Sons of Adam, to take his place on drums.[12] Stuart later reflected: "When Arthur saw me play, he realized that I was versatile enough to do anything. So he thought that I would be a perfect fit for the material he had in mind."[17] Lee then expanded Love to a septet with the addition of Tjay Cantrelli (born John Barberis), a saxophonist and flautist whom he had crossed paths with in the early 1960s.[18] Both Lee and Echols would credit Cantrelli for allowing the group to embrace a more jazz-influenced sound.[19]

On Stuart's first day as a member of the group, Lee and Echols brought him to Elektra's offices where, unbeknownst to him, they had planned another attempt to sever their contract with the label.[19] The three confronted one of the label executives and claimed that poor vinyl production and distribution of their debut album was holding them back.[20] As Stuart recalls in his 2003 autobiography: "Arthur said, 'I want to talk to you about releasing us from our 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."[21] The ploy failed and the three were sent away, advised to instead focus their energy on preparing for the upcoming recording sessions.[22]

Production and recording

With the band ready to record their second album, Holzman was able to secure Paul A. Rothchild as the producer.[23] Holzman had wanted Rothchild to produce the band's first album as well, but during that time he was in jail for marijuana possession.[24] When it came time to record Da Capo, Rothchild had just finished working the sessions for the Doors' self-titled debut album in August.[25] Despite getting along well with Love, Echols recalled that Rothchild "wasn't that enamored with the album because he'd heard our first album ... he was expecting a different group."[15]

Both Echols and Botnick acknowledged that Rothchild's 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 [him] 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."[25] Holzman would later praise Rothchild's work on the album: "Da Capo was an artistic stretch, and I think a lot of the reach on that album was provided by Paul."[25] "There's a fair amount of Paul Rothchild on that album", commented Botnick.[25]

The sessions for Da Capo were convened in RCA Studio B at 6363 Sunset Boulevard.[26] Echols suggested that the reason the band was moved to RCA was because the Doors were currently booked at Sunset Sound.[15] Andrew Sandoval writes that the studio not only provided Love with a new environment, but also created the "right atmosphere" for their material.[15] The change in studio prevented Botnick from engineering the sessions, and the job was instead done by Dave Hassinger,[27] whose "sonic mastery", Sandoval says, "gave the group further confidence in their work."[15] Echols reported positive recollections of the setting, saying that "[e]verything was relaxed in there ... It wasn't uptight at RCA as it was at Sunset Sound. 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 that – just was not as conductive in the way RCA was with Dave Hassinger."[15] Recording began on September 27, with rhythm guitarist Bryan MacLean's composition "Orange Skies", followed by Lee's "¡Que Vida!" on the 28th, "She Comes in Colors" on the 29th, "The Castle" on the 30th, and "Stephanie Knows Who" on October 1. The next day the group returned to Sunset Sound to complete the album by recording their stage favorite "John Lee Hooker", later retitled "Revelation".[28]

Once all the tracks were completed, Botnick mixed the album, adding in "7 and 7 Is", and presented it to Holzman for his approval.[29] Botnick later said that Hassinger "made Love sound different than I did" and that him mixing the album ensured that "there would be no differentiation between [his] work and my work."[27]

Music

Writer and musician Dave Swanson says that Da Capo builds upward from the foundation laid out on Love's debut album to incorporate more complex arrangements, instrumentation, and production. He notes the various musical influences that show throughout the album, such as: "breezy, jazzy pop" on "Orange Skies"; "Burt Bacharach-styled pop and bossa nova" merging on "¡Que Vida!"; the "defiant, proto-punk" sound on "7 and 7 Is"; and the acoustic style on "The Castle" which "prefigures" the band's next album Forever Changes.[31] Hoskyns says that the album introduced "a psychedelic and almost baroque edge" to the band's original garage-folk sound, and that side one of the album also features elements of Latin and Broadway music.[32]

The skills of Stuart and Cantrelli allowed Love to attempt a more sophisticated kind of music, namely jazz.[33] As such, Da Capo is one of the earliest rock albums to be described as jazz rock,[34] although Lee initially dismissed this label in a 1967 interview with Hit Parader, saying: "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."[35] Author William E. Spevack notes that the album Out of Sight and Sound by the Free Spirits, considered by some to be the first jazz rock record, was released about a month after Da Capo.[34]

According to author Mike Segretto, the first half of Da Capo acts as a bridge between the garage rock of Love's debut album and the more refined sound of Forever Changes; however, since those albums are "so diametrically unlike", Da Capo sounds "totally different" from either of them.[36] Segretto also says that the album "pushed Love's hard rock as far as it could go", stating that they "could never make a wilder recording than '7 and 7 Is' or a more indulgent one than 'Revelations.' [sic]"[36]

Lyrically, Spevack says that Lee had "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."[34] He credits the complex rhythmic settings of the lyrics as lending to the psychedelic feel of the album.[34] Additionally, Spevack observes that the softer songs on Da Capo, namely "Orange Skies" and "The Castle", mark the first appearances of Lee's smoother and cleaner vocal tone—dubbed "acid-Mathis" by the press—which would continue to be featured through Forever Changes, Four Sail, and Out Here.[37]

The album's second half is a single track, among the first rock songs to take up an entire LP side (Bob Dylan's "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" from Blonde on Blonde predated it by a few months, and The Mothers of Invention's "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" suite, on the Freak Out! album, followed Dylan's by just over a month). The 19-minute jam, entitled "Revelation", began life as a live showcase for the group. The introduction to the piece is the Giga from the Partita No. 1 BWV 825 by J. S. Bach. Some sources claim it evolved out of their interpretation of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning", yet its original title was "John Lee Hooker". The song/jam bears a resemblance to the Rolling Stones' "Goin' Home", recorded at the same studio (RCA) and released earlier in the year, on Aftermath. Arthur Lee is quoted on the back cover of Rhino's 1980 LP compilation "Best of Love": "The song 'Revelation' was a long jam we did so the musicians could express themselves. The Rolling Stones saw us play at the Brave New World, and they recorded a long song on their next album. After our album came out, I got the blame for copying them!"[38]

Title and packaging

Keeping with the theme of Love "restarting" their sound, Lee asked Pfisterer, the only member of the band who could read music, the musical term for going back to the beginning, to which he replied with "Da capo".[39] The album's front cover illustrates this theme by showing a framed photo of the band at the same burnt-out house in Laurel Canyon featured on the cover of their first album.[40] According to Stuart, the cover photo captures Lee exhaling from a joint.[29]

The album's back cover photo was taken in the upstairs office of the Whisky a Go Go.[41] Echols said that it was "the only time we ever did anything like that studio posed thing, because for every other thing we went outside."[42]

Release and reception

In advance of Da Capo's release, Love unveiled their new lineup and sound to the public with a series of shows at the Whisky from October 19 to 30,[43] receiving rave notices in the local press.[44] By the time the album was released in November, the "7 and 7 Is" single had also achieved critical and commercial success, helping to further boost the album's sales.[45] Despite selling relatively well, peaking at number 80 on the Billboard Top LPs,[29] the album was not as successful as the band hoped it would be.[46] Lee blamed its meager commercial performance on Elektra, but Botnick disagreed, saying "Arthur wouldn't go out and promote it!"[29] Stuart later suggested that the band should have toured behind the album; however, he acknowledged that Lee was "different in every way, and prided himself on being different. If bands toured after releasing an album, he would do it differently. He thought we could be more individualistic, more interesting, more mysterious ... all these things that other bands were not, by doing things like turning down tours."[47]

Regarding Da Capo as an "undeniably groundbreaking release for 1966" with music that had "no other context or reference in rock'n'roll up to that point", Einarson asks if Lee had overestimated his audience with a body of work "perhaps too complex and esoteric for their tastes".[29] Writer and critic Jim Bickhart, who had observed Love's progress and the wider Los Angeles music scene, said: "I think, by that point, Arthur had shown he was kind of oblivious to who his audience was and how to appeal to them ... I think he was simply following his muse. My guess is that he was not thinking, 'I'm going to bring my audience along with me,' he was just thinking, 'I'm going to do what I'm going to do.' But what exactly his motivations were, or what statements he was trying to make, it was difficult to discern."[48]

Da Capo received positive recognition from the era's media.[49] In the April 1967 issue of Mojo-Navigator Rock & Roll News, David Harris called the album "a great advance" over Love's first album and "a very fine musical achievement". He observed that the band's musical ideas had "grown a good deal" and acknowledged their integration of rock and jazz into "a new form of music."[50] Robert Christgau, writing in his June 1967 column for Esquire magazine, was more critical of the album. Although he called "7 and 7 Is" a "perfect rocker", he felt that the rest of the album's first side "sounds cluttered and lacks sock". He said that this may be due to Lee's voice, which he described as "more often too sweet for his material." Of "Revelation", Christgau wrote: "It includes excellent guitar and harmonica work and great screaming ... It also includes some mediocre alto sax and (I shudder) a protracted drum solo. A brave stab at a target somewhere between rock and jazz, I think it fails, but it may prove prophetic."[51]

Legacy

Retrospective professional reviews

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[52]
Chrysalis CD Guide to Pop & Rock	Sound: Content: [53]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[54]
The Great Rock Discography	8/10[55]
Music Story	[56]
MusicHound Rock	4/5[57]
Piero Scaruffi	8/10[58]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[59]

Da Capo has been largely overshadowed by Love's third album Forever Changes,[60] widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.[61] Spevack writes that many fans and critics who have given Forever Changes that title have also declared Da Capo "the perfect album side", and that the decision to devote the entire other side to "Revelation" instead of a potential six further songs from Lee or MacLean has resulted in Love "only having one universally beloved masterpiece LP and not two."[62] Writing for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger said that although side one stands as "a truly classic body of work", side two keeps the album as a whole from attaining that status.[52] Mike Segretto called the album "frustrating" due to it not "follow[ing] through on its tremendous promise." He said that the first side "may be the best run of Love songs the band ever recorded", and that the album may have ended up being their best if the second side "had some songs on it." Despite this, Segretto said that the strength of side one still set the album "well above the majority of its contemporaries."[63]

The album has been featured in several record guides, such as: John Tobler's 100 Great Albums of the Sixties (1994);[64] Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000), where it was voted number 331;[65] Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (2008), albeit as a "Catalog Choice" after Forever Changes;[66] and Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2018).[67] Alice Cooper, who recorded a cover of "7 and 7 Is" for his 1981 album Special Forces,[68] has named Da Capo as one of his favorite albums of all time.[69]

Based on Da Capo's professional ratings and appearances in listings, the review aggregator website Acclaimed Music lists it as the 33rd-most-acclaimed album of 1966, the 303rd of the 1960s, and the 2,228th of all time.[70]

Track listing

All songs written by Arthur Lee, except "Orange Skies" (Bryan MacLean) and "Revelation" (Lee/MacLean/John Echols/Ken Forssi).[71]

Side one

1. "Stephanie Knows Who" – 2:33
2. "Orange Skies" – 2:49
3. "¡Que Vida!" – 3:37
4. "7 and 7 Is" – 2:15
5. "The Castle" – 3:00
6. "She Comes in Colors" – 2:43

Side two

1. "Revelation" – 18:57

2002 reissue

The 2002 CD reissue of Da Capo contains both mono and stereo mixes of the album, as well as the following bonus track:[72]

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

Personnel

According to William E. Spevack and Bruno Ceriotti.[73]

Love

• Arthur Lee – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica, drums, percussion
• John Echols – lead guitar, co-lead vocals on "Revolution"
• Bryan MacLean – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
• Ken Forssi – bass
• Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer – organ, harpsichord, drums on "7 and 7 Is"
• Tjay Cantrelli – saxophone, flute
• Michael Stuart – drums

Production

• Paul A. Rothchild – producer
• Jac Holzman – producer, production supervisor
• Bruce Botnick – engineer
• Dave Hassinger – engineer
• William S. Harvey – front cover photography and design
• Guy Webster – back cover photography

References

Citations

Sources

На других языках

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- [en] Da Capo (Love album)

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[ru] Da Capo (альбом Love)

Da Capo — второй студийный альбом американской рок-группы Love.

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