Arthur Lee, the eccentric singer-guitarist and driving force behind the 1960s' cult psychedelic rock band Love, has died. He was 61.
According to his manager, Mark Linn, Lee lost his fight with leukemia Thursday at Methodist University Hospital in his hometown of Memphis.
"His death comes as a shock to me because Arthur had the uncanny ability to bounce back from everything, and leukemia was no exception," Linn told Reuters. "He was confident that he would be back on stage by the fall."
With its multiracial lineup,
Love mixed R&B, garage and folk rock and even symphonic music and proto-punk into a sound that confounded critics and helped usher in the mind-bending psychedelic rock scene so popular in that turbulent decade.
Lee, who referred to himself the "first so-called black hippie," originally named his band the Grass Roots, but was forced to drop it because another act had the same moniker. As the story goes, he chose Love above alternatives like Poetic Justice and Dr. Strangelove after polling the audience at a club gig.
Read more at E! Online.
