Arthur Lee: Love hurts

SOMETHING ABOUT Arthur Lee invites myth. Lee – the cantankerous, charismatic singer and guitarist of the groundbreaking yet largely forgotten band Love – inspires tales that spring up from the streets, ghostlike and strange as urban legend: A bum shuffles up to someone who's strumming a guitar on a park bench, coughs and says sheepishly that he, too, knows how to play a little. Only after the guy is duly brushed-off and disappears down the street does the strummer realize it was Arthur Lee. In the late '60s, the story went, Lee performed his ragged rock epic, 'Revelation', grabbed a gun, and promptly blew his brains out onstage after the final chordal crescendo. Then there's the one about how Lee and his band murdered – hanged – their roadie.