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Bido Lito's |
Funny there should be missing pieces in modern times, yet the history of contemporary music is sketchy at best. The pieces are scattered, lying all about, and I find myself stumbling onto information that once seemed cohesive. I re-posted an article about Zappa (somewhere down below) and his first flirtations in Hollywood, far removed from the rock scene on the Sunset Strip. This part of Hollywood wasn't about the clubs; the seedy neighborhood surrounding Sunset and Vine was more about the last days of NBC's Radio City (the beautiful art deco building that was replaced by Home Savings in the mid-60s), and Wallich's Music City (a record store that featured listening booths). In 1963 a new focus turned our sights away from an old Hollywood crumbling before our eyes: the Cinerama Dome.

More than any others though, it was Love who would find their success hidden within Bido Lito's. Arthur Lee, Love's frontman, singer/songwriter was born in Nashville and relocated to L.A. in 1964. Several unsuccessful bands followed until he met up with high school friend Johnny Echols to form The Grass Roots, following in the style of The Byrds and moving away from Lee's bluesier beginnings (Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil was the bands off and on guitarist). The band, upon learning that the moniker was already in use, and after trying on names like Dr. Strangelove, Asylum Choir and Summer's Children, finally decided on The Love and then, simply Love. Lee and Love began to attract an audience dotted with rock stars and celebrities, including Mick Jagger, Dylan and old friend Jimi Hendrix. Love's music was a gritty mix of blues and country rock, but it had a sinister off-putting vibe that created a mystique that fit with Bido Lito's back-alley demeanor. Rock critic of the time, Lillian Rossen said of Lee, "Arthur Lee produced one of the most amusing paradoxes in rock - a Negro, he came on like Mick Jagger, a white singer who built his whole style around accurate imitations of Negroes." The politically incorrect analysis is no less accurate today.
"I really wanted a Love band, a Love thing. I wanted to be The Beatles, The Stones, a real unit. But everybody had different behavior patterns. One guy was this way, one guy was the other way, and I'm not Atlas, man. I can't hold up the world." But Lee wasn't a public figure; he didn't fit in with the crowd, which only exacerbated his paranoia. "Jim [Morrison] used to sit outside my door when I lived in Laurel Canyon. He wanted to hang out with me, but I didn't want to hang out with anybody." Once he moved up to Mulholland Drive, at the crest of the Hollywood Hills, his actions were those of a recluse. His elusive ways may have been the component that keeps Love a mere obscurity today.