The Lovin' Spoonful | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Greenwich Village,New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Discography | Albums and singles |
| Years active |
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| Labels | |
| Spinoff of | The Mugwumps |
| Members |
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| Past members | |
| Website | lovinspoonful |
The Lovin' Spoonful is an Americanfolk-rock band formed inGreenwich Village, New York City, in 1964. The band were among the most popular groups in the United States for a short period in the mid-1960s and their music and image influenced many of the contemporary rock acts of their era. Beginning in July 1965 with their debut single "Do You Believe in Magic", the band had seven consecutive singles reach the Top Ten of the U.S. charts in the eighteen months that followed, including the number-two hits "Daydream" and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" and the chart-topping "Summer in the City".
Led by their primary songwriterJohn Sebastian, the Spoonful took their earliest influences fromjug band andblues music, reworking them into apopular music format. In 1965, the band helped pioneer the development of the musical genre of folk rock. By 1966, the group were "one of the most highly regarded Americanbands",[1] and they were the year's third-best-selling singles act in the U.S., afterthe Beatles andthe Rolling Stones. Aspsychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967, the Spoonful struggled to transition their approach and saw diminished sales before disbanding in 1968.
Before they founded the Spoonful, Sebastian (guitar, harmonica,autoharp, vocals) andZal Yanovsky (guitar, vocals) were active in Greenwich Village'sfolk-music scene. Aiming to create an "electric jug band",[2] they recruited the local rock musiciansSteve Boone (bass guitar) andJoe Butler (drums, vocals). The four-piece lineup honed their sound at New York nightclubs before they began recording forKama Sutra Records with the producerErik Jacobsen. In May 1966, at the height of the band's success,Yanovsky and Boone were arrested for marijuana possession in San Francisco. The pair revealed their drug source to authorities to avoid Yanovsky being deported to his native Canada, an action which generated tensions within the group. Due to disagreements over their artistic direction, the band fired Yanovsky in May 1967, replacing him withJerry Yester, and Yanovsky commenced a brief and commercially unsuccessful solo career. The original iteration of the Spoonful last publicly performed in June 1968, after which time Sebastian departed the group and pursued a briefly successful solo career. The band dissolved later that year.
In 2000, the Spoonful were inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw Sebastian, Yanovsky, Boone and Butler perform together for the last time. Yanovsky died of a heart attack two years later. Sebastian has remained active as a solo act, and Boone, Butler and Yester began touring under the namethe Lovin' Spoonful in 1991.
The first time I heardZal [Yanovsky] was atCass Elliot's house. Cass was forever the Jewish matchmaker, she was matching up boys to play in bands like a house afire. And she had us nailed as, "Oh, these guys have to work together."[3]
The co-founders of the Lovin' Spoonful –John Sebastian andZal Yanovsky – met on February 9, 1964, at the apartment ofCass Elliot, a mutual friend and fellow musician.[4][nb 1] Elliot was holding a party that night to watch the English rock bandthe Beatles make their American television debut onThe Ed Sullivan Show.[7] Elliot, Sebastian and Yanovsky were all active in thefolk-music scene inGreenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City,[8] and the three were greatly influenced by the Beatles' performance; Sebastian later reflected, "It affectedus heavily ...us [meaning] my specific generation".[9] Later that night, Elliot encouraged Sebastian and Yanovsky to play guitars,[8] and Sebastian remembered discovering they had "a tremendous affinity" for one another.[10]
Sebastian, the son of the classicalharmonica playerJohn Sebastian Sr., grew up in a Village apartment which neighboredWashington Square Park.[11] The younger Sebastian often went to the park to play music,[11][12] and he also played in rock bands as a teenager at hisprep school inNew Jersey.[13] He became a multi-instrumentalist, being proficient on guitar, harmonica, piano and theautoharp.[12] Beginning in the early 1960s, he worked as astudio musician.[14]
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Yanovsky grew up inDownsview, a suburb of Toronto, Canada, and he was enmeshed as a guitar player in the city's folk-music scene, which centered on theYorkville neighborhood.[15]Denny Doherty, another musician active in Yorkville,[15] invited Yanovsky to join his folk group,the Halifax Three, which later relocated to Greenwich Village.[16] After the Halifax Three broke up in June 1964,[17] Elliot recruited Yanovsky and Doherty to join her own group,the Mugwumps.[18] That same year, Sebastian briefly played with another New York folk group, theEven Dozen Jug Band, before he was also recruited into the Mugwumps to play harmonica.[19][nb 2]
Sebastian later remembered becoming enamoured with Yanovsky: "[He] amused the hell out of me. He inhaled and exhaled people and conversation and jokes and theater. He was this kind of cultural weathervane – and people gathered around him."[2] During live performances with the Mugwumps, rather than playing folk songs straight through, Yanovsky and Sebastian often improvised off of one another on guitar and harmonica, respectively.[2] After the Mugwumps dissolved in late 1964, Sebastian and Yanovsky began planning to form their own group,[19][23] which they envisioned as an electricjug band.[2][nb 3] Sebastian recalled: "Yanovsky and I were both aware of the fact that this commercial folk music model was about to change again, that the four-man band that actually played their own instruments and wrote their own songs was the thing."[2] Yanovsky contactedBob Cavallo, the former manager of the Halifax Three and the Mugwumps, who agreed to manage Sebastian and Yanovsky's group even though they had not yet performed publicly, had no songs and did not yet have a band name.[24]
In 1964, Sebastian lived in an apartment on Prince Street inLittle Italy, a Manhattan neighborhood south of Greenwich Village. That year,Erik Jacobsen, the former banjo player of the bluegrass bandKnob Lick Upper 10,000, moved into the apartment next door,[25] and the two soon bonded over their shared interests of smoking marijuana and listening to eclectic music.[25][26] Like Sebastian, Jacobsen had been affected by the new sound of the Beatles; he later recalled that while touring in early 1964, he listened to the group for the first time on ajukebox: "I decided, kind of then and there I think, that I was gonna quit the Knob Lick Upper 10,000, and go to New York City, and produced electric folk music."[25] As part of his effort to switch focus towards production, Jacobsen recordeddemos for musicians in the Village,[27] including Sebastian's compositions "Warm Baby" and"Rooty-Toot".[28][nb 4]
From 1962 to 1964,Steve Boone played bass guitar in severalLong Island rock bands with the drummerJoe Butler.[30] They both played in the Kingsmen, a band led by Boone's brother, Skip, before Boone quit in mid-1964 to spend time visiting Europe. Skip and Butler changed the band's name tothe Sellouts and moved to Greenwich Village, holding a residency atTrude Heller's club as one of the neighborhood's earliest rock groups.[31]
In December 1964,[30] at the insistence of Butler, Boone went to the Village Music Hall, a small music club on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village.[32] There, he met Sebastian and Yanovsky,[33] and though he had no background in folk music,[34] Boone soon bonded with the two over their shared musical influences, includingElvis Presley,Chuck Berry,the Everly Brothers,Buddy Holly,Motown, the Beatles and otherBritish Invasion acts.[33] Sebastian played him his composition "Good Time Music" – the lyrics of which derided early 1960srock and roll while extolling the Beatles and other new music – and the three musiciansjammed different Chuck Berry and R&B numbers.[35] Sebastian invited Boone to Jacobsen's apartment afterwards, where Boone met Jacobsen as well asJerry Yester of theModern Folk Quartet, a local folk music group.[36] That week, Boone attended Sebastian's performance at a Greenwich Village club.[37] Sebastian's show, made up of a quickly assembled group of Fred Neil,Tim Hardin,Buzzy Linhart andFelix Pappalardi, greatly impressed Boone,[37][38] who later remembered it as "one of the most significant nights in my musical life."[38] He also recalled: "I was stunned. I had never heard such power in a folk group before."[38] The performance motivated Boone to enter the Greenwich Village folk scene and join Sebastian and Yanovsky's group.[38]
The band was still in need of a drummer, and Boone suggested Jan Buchner, a part-timer with the Kingsmen who came at the recommendation of both Skip and Butler.[39] Buchner, who went by the stagename Jan Carl, was the manager of the Bull's Head Inn, a small inn located inBridgehampton on Long Island, and which he offered as a rehearsal space during the inn's winter closure. The band rehearsed at the Bull's Head for several weeks in December 1964 and January 1965, and they also played at local bars in Bridgehampton at night.[40]
In late 1964 and early 1965, to keep earning money before his new band had earned a contract, Sebastian continued performing as a studio musician on other artists' recordings.[41] In this period, he played harmonica onprogressive folk records for several acts, includingFred Neil,Jesse Colin Young andJudy Collins.[14][nb 5] In January 1965,[42] the musicianBob Dylan asked Sebastian to play bass guitar on his newest album,Bringing It All Back Home.[43] The album's first day of sessions, January 13, featured only Dylan on an acoustic guitar and, for a few tracks, Sebastian playing bass guitar, but none of the recordings were used on the final album.[44][45][nb 6] Dylan returned the next day to re-record much of the material, rearranging the songs attempted the day before so they instead featured an electric backing.[47] Dylan invited Sebastian to return for a separate session held that evening,[47] in which they recorded a remake of the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues".[45] Boone – one of the few people Sebastian knew with a car and driver's license – offered to drive him to the session.[48][49] Sebastian was not a trained bass player and, after struggling to play the part, he suggested that Boone play instead,[50][51] but neither musician's contributions ended up on the final album.[52][nb 7]
We were still trying to come up with a name when I ran intoFritz Richmond, a friend and musician. I asked him for suggestions. Fritz asked what we sounded like. I said a cross betweenChuck Berry andMississippi John Hurt. Fritz suggestedthe Lovin' Spoonful, a line from Hurt's 1963 song "Coffee Blues." The name was perfect.[53]
In early 1965, in preparation for their first public performances, Sebastian, Yanovsky, Boone and Carl continued rehearsing at the Bull's Head, while Sebastian and Yanovsky searched for a group name.[54]Fritz Richmond, thewashtub bass player for theJim Kweskin Jug Band, suggested to Sebastian the namethe Lovin' Spoonful,[54][55] a reference to the lyrics of the song "Coffee Blues" by the country blues musicianMississippi John Hurt,[56] with whom Sebastian had previously worked.[38] Sebastian and Yanovsky were enthusiastic about the suggestion and adopted it as the band's name.[57]
Joe Marra, the owner of Greenwich Village's Night Owl Cafe, knew Sebastian from his time backing other artists at the club, and Marra offered to book the Spoonful at the venue.[58] The Night Owl was formerly an after-hours bowling alley atWest 3rd andMacDougal Streets, which Marra had recently converted into a 125-person capacity coffeehouse and restaurant for folk music acts.[59] The band made their first live performances in late January 1965 at the Night Owl, holding a two-week residency.[2] One show, which Jacobsen recorded on a tape recorder, featured a mixture of Sebastian's originals ("Good Time Music" and "Didn't Want to Have to Do It"), folk songs ("Wild About My Lovin'" and "My Gal") and rock and roll ("Route 66", "Alley Oop" and "Almost Grown").[60][nb 8] The band received a mixed reception, due in part to their loud playing style in the small venue.[60] Marra was unimpressed and returned to booking folk acts.[62] Cavallo and Jacobsen recommended rehearsals and that the band replace Carl as drummer. Carl, who was six years older than his bandmates, clashed with them in terms of appearance and playing style, and he was subsequently fired by the band's management.[60]
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Having fired Carl, the Spoonful could no longer play at the Bull's Head and were in need of a new rehearsal space.[65] The band had little money and had been living with Elliot in her Village apartment at theHotel Albert.[66] The Albert was frequented by many local folk musicians, and the building's proprietors allowed musicians staying there to rehearse in its basement, a decaying space with standing pools of water, chipping walls and a bug infestation.[67] While at the Albert, the band befriended one of the building's permanent residents, Butchie Webber, who often fed them meals. Though the two were not romantic, Webber married Sebastian, so as to prevent him from being drafted into fighting in theVietnam War.[68] Butler, who still played drums for the Sellouts, auditioned for the Spoonful in the Albert's basement. He impressed the others when he broke a drumstick but continued performing by hitting the cymbal with his hand, cutting it in the process. The band were inspired by Butler's energy and hired him as their drummer.[38][69]
While waiting to be signed to a record label, the Spoonful played at night clubs on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, includingCafe Wha? and Café Bizarre.[70] The band held a brief residency at Café Bizarre,[71] playing several sets a night for six days a week,[62] leading Sebastian to later reflect, "We learned more at that crappy little club than almost any other gig."[72] Marra had been especially critical of the band's earlier performances at the Night Owl, but he was impressed by the band's newly professional approach,[71] and in May of 1965, he offered for the band to return to performing at the Night Owl.[72] The Spoonful shared their bill at the club with two other electric groups whom Marra booked,Danny Kalb's bandthe Blues Project and the Modern Folk Quartet,[72][73] the latter of which Sebastian sometimes filled in for on drums.[74] The Night Owl's triple-bill was immediately successful,[72] and other established acts sometimes came to watch, including members of the American bandthe Byrds andMary Travers of the folk-trioPeter, Paul and Mary.[75] Around the time he began booking electric acts, Marra moved the venue's stage towards the front street-facing window to draw in passers-by,[72] and he printed a large color photo of the Spoonful and placed it in the club's window, which helped elevate the band's local popularity.[71]
On June 7 and 8, 1965,[76] the Spoonful performed atClub 47, a folk music club inCambridge, Massachusetts.[77][78] Boone remembered feeling hesitant to perform at a club known strictly for folk music,[78] but Sebastian recalled that he and Yanovsky were immediately enthusiastic at the prospect of challenging folk enthusiasts: "Did we want tokill in that room! ... We were going to be face to face with the folkies at last."[77] The band played at the venue at the suggestion of Fritz Richmond,[78] who encouraged the group by pointing to Bob Dylan's recent transition to electrified rock,[78] first heard three months earlier with the release of "Subterranean Homesick Blues",[79] and the newfound popularity of the Byrds,[78] whosefolk rock cover of Dylan's song "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number one in North America that month.[80][81] The term "folk rock" had been coined in the June 12 issue of the American music magazineBillboard by the journalist Eliot Siegel, who used the term principally to describe the music of the Byrds.[82] Siegel also counted "the Living Spoonfull" [sic] as an act working in the New York area with "a folk-rock sound", even though the group had not yet released a record.[82][83][nb 9]
[During our first set atClub 47, this woman] carefully [got my] and Zally's attention, points out toward the amplifier, and puts her fingers in her ears. And Zally gave her his broadest and most affectionate smile, and turned his amplifier up as loud as he could. That was a real transition.[85]
The Spoonful performed two sets at Club 47 and initially received a mixed reception; many folk fans walked out of the first set due to the band's loud sound.[86] During the second set, the band received a warm response from the remaining crowd.[86] In retrospect, the authorRichie Unterberger describes the Spoonful's appearance as a "watershed" moment in the history of folk rock.[85] The rock journalistPaul Williams attended the shows, and his review of the performances for the magazineFolkin' Around marked his earliest work as a music writer.[87] Williams later reflected, "For a band like that to come to Club 47 was revolutionary, in terms of Cambridge['s] holier-than-thou purist attitude about folk music."[85]
Early in the Spoonful's May residency at the Night Owl,[72] Sebastian wrote a new song, "Do You Believe in Magic", which explored the transformative power of music.[91] His initial inspiration came during one of the band's performances, in which he and Yanovsky noticed a sixteen-year-old girl dancing among the audience.[92][88] The girl stood in contrast to the olderbeatnik crowd who typically attended folk performances,[88] and Sebastian recalled that "[she was] dancing likewe danced – and not like the last generation danced".[72] He also remembered: "Zal and I just elbowed each other the entire night, because to us, that young girl symbolized the fact that our audience was changing, that maybe they had finally found us."[88] Sebastian composed the song the following night,[92][88] and the band worked together at the Albert to finish its arrangement.[93]
The Spoonful was enthusiastic about "Do You Believe in Magic" and hoped to record ademo of the song to flog to record companies.[93] In June 1965,[94] Jacobsen fronted a session with his own money atBell Sound Studios in New York, where the band recorded "Do You Believe in Magic" and several other songs.[93][94][nb 10] Jacobsen invited Yester to participate in the session, adding both piano and backing vocals,[95] and the session musicianGary Chester played tambourine.[96] Jacobsen and Cavallo brought anacetate disc of the demo to numerous record labels, all of which turned down an opportunity to sign the band.[95][90] After attending one of the Spoonful's performances at the Night Owl,[97]Phil Spector, a well-known producer, listened to an acetate of "Do You Believe in Magic" and considered signing the band to his label,Philles Records.[98] Recollections differ as to who turned whom down, but subsequent authors suggest that in writing their own music and possessing a defined sound, the Spoonful differed greatly from the acts with which Spector normally worked.[99][100][nb 11]
Elektra Records approached the Spoonful and offered to sign them.[102][103] Elektra regularly produced acts from Greenwich Village, including the Even Dozen Jug Band andthe Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The label's offer would have allowed the Spoonful to retain Jacobsen as their producer and Cavallo as their manager, but the band worried that Elektra had not been successful at issuing singles in the pop market,[97] and that they would not be clearly identified as a rock act if they signed at a folk-oriented label.[103] Cavallo approachedPaul Rothchild andJac Holzman of Elektra and said the band needed an advance of $10,000 before they could sign (equivalent to US$100,000 in 2024).[104][105] Holzman initially refused due to the large figure, but he soon changed his mind and offered the band a deal, by which point they had signed elsewhere.[104] The band instead signed a side-deal with Elektra,[102] which had them record four songs, including Sebastian's song "Good Time Music".[103] Jacobsen later said that the band offered the songs to Elektra out of guilt, since "We had kind of hung [Holzman] out to dry just a little bit ... [so we] allowed him to have those sides.[103] The label later included the four songs on the compilation albumWhat's Shakin', released the following year.[103][106]
The Spoonful signed with Koppelman-Rubin, an entertainment company,[107] who signed the band toKama Sutra Records in June 1965.[108] As part of the deal,MGM Records distributed the records, which Kama Sutra released for Koppelman-Rubin.[107] The arrangement's format of multiplemiddlemen left little in profits for the band.[104][107] Sebastian later said that not signing with Elektra was "the worst decision I ever made in my life".[109]
Kama Sutra saw no need to re-record Jacobsen's original demo of the Spoonful performing "Do You Believe in Magic", and the label pressed copies to be the band's debut single.[107] The label issued it in the U.S. on July 20, 1965,[110][89] and it debuted on theBillboard Hot 100 a month later,[94] remaining on the chart for thirteen weeks and peaking in October at number nine.[111]
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The release of "Do You Believe in Magic" in July 1965 propelled the Spoonful to nationwide fame in the U.S. within weeks.[112] The band made their American television debut on thechannel 10 show of the Miami disc jockeyRick Shaw, and they also taped appearances for the TV programsAmerican Bandstand,The Merv Griffin Show andThe Lloyd Thaxton Show.[113] In conjunction with the release of the single, the band's management made plans for their first series of serious live dates outside of New York City.[107] Beginning in August, the band toured theWest Coast of the United States.[114] In San Francisco, the band held a two-week residency atMother's Nightclub,[115][116] which then advertised itself as the "world's first psychedelic nightclub",[117] and on August 7,[118] they performed in-front of 35,000 at theRose Bowl inPasadena, California, as one of several support acts for the English pop groupHerman's Hermits, alongsidethe Turtles andthe Bobby Fuller Four.[119] In Los Angeles, the Spoonful played at several clubs onSunset Strip, includingCiro's, theWhisky a Go Go[120] andThe Crescendo (later renamedThe Trip).[112][114]
In October 1965, the Spoonful returned to the West Coast,[121] where their image and sound proved influential in the emergingSan Francisco scene,[122][123] particularly in the city'sHaight-Ashbury district, a center of the 1960s counterculture.[123] The band appeared for a week at thehungry i,[124][125] one of the most prominent clubs in America's folk-music scene,[126] where they were seen by theSan Francisco Chronicle's jazz criticRalph J. Gleason.[127][128] In his review of their first show, Gleason described the band's music and clothing as "the expression of a new age" and "an expression of freedom".[128] He concluded the band was "vital and alive and, I believe, important".[128] On October 24,[129] the Spoonful headlined a dance party at theLongshoreman's Union Hall in the city'sFisherman's Wharf neighborhood.[116][130] Organized by the concert-production collectiveFamily Dog Productions, the event combined rock music with light shows andpsychedelic drugs,[131] and it was among the earliest events of its kind in San Francisco;[132][122] Jacobsen reflected, "That whole idea of going and listening to music andgetting high started there".[122] In attendance at the Longshoreman's show were members of theGrateful Dead,[133] an acoustic-folk group, who were inspired by the Spoonful's performance to similarly "go electric" in their style.[134][nb 12]
Amid their touring schedule, the Spoonful recorded tracks for their debut album,Do You Believe in Magic.[139][nb 13] The band recorded thirteen songs across several sessions between June and September 1965, mostly at Bell Sound in New York, and they also recorded at RCA Studios inHollywood, Los Angeles. The band's focus was on recording as quickly as possible, and a majority of the songs were jug band and blues covers taken from their typical live set list.[141] The album's five original compositions were all credited to Sebastian, including "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?",[94] which he based on a experience as a child at summer camp when he fell in love with twin sisters.[142] Pointing to the success of the Beatles and the Byrds, the Spoonful's label encouraged the band to trade lead vocal responsibilities;[86] onDo You Believe in Magic, Sebastian sings lead on most songs, but Butler also sings twice ("You Baby" and "The Other Side of This Life") as does Yanovsky ("Blues in the Bottle", "On the Road Again" and the unreleased "Alley Oop").[94] The album first went on sale on October 23, 1965, when the band held an autograph session inPleasant Hill, California,[143] and Kama Sutra issued the album nationwide in November.[94] It debuted on theBillboard Top LPs chart on December 4,[94] and it initially ran on the chart for 19 weeks, peaking in February 1966 at number 71.[144]
By late 1965, the Spoonful had made appearances on the most popular American television variety shows, includingWhere the Action Is,Shindig! andHullabaloo.[145] Executives fromNBC approached Cavallo and offered the band the opportunity to star in their own television series,The Monkees.[145][146] The executivesBob Rafelson andBert Schneider met with the band in Manhattan and explained their idea for a comedy sitcom about a band seeking to make it big, styled similarly to the Beatles' 1964 film,A Hard Day's Night. Though excited at the prospect of being propelled quickly to a national audience, the band were unenthusiastic at the idea of having to change their name toThe Monkees and were worried that their ability to create and play their own music would be limited by the venture. They declined the offer.[147] Rafelson later said that the Spoonful was the only existing group considered for the show before they began auditioning individual actors and musicians in September 1965.[148]
In November 1965, the Spoonful embarked on a 19-day package-tour with the American girl groupthe Supremes.[149][150] The acts performed at colleges across the southern U.S.,[150] beginning inLafayette, Louisiana, on November 10.[151][152] Both acts traveled by bus and partied together, along with members of the Supremes' backing band,[153]the Funk Brothers, billed as theEarl Van Dyke Orchestra.[154] The Spoonful generally enjoyed the tour but found it physically exhausting. Sebastian additionally missed his girlfriend, Loretta "Lorey" Kaye.[155] Near the tour's end, in an effort to raise his own spirits, he composed "Daydream" while riding on the bus through North Carolina,[155] drawing inspiration from the Supremes' 1964 singles "Baby Love" and "Where Did Our Love Go".[153] A stop inSavannah, Georgia inspired the beginnings of "Jug Band Music",[155] which Boone later said "recalled pleasant visions of the tour" for him and his bandmates.[153]
At the conclusion of their tour with the Supremes, the Spoonful departed directly for Los Angeles, having been invited by Phil Spector to appear in the concert filmThe Big T.N.T. Show.[156] After filming on 29–30 November,[157] the band remained in Los Angeles to do several weeks of a residency at the Trip, a short-lived nightclub onSunset Boulevard,[156] whereBrian Wilson ofthe Beach Boys saw them perform.[158] During their stay, the Spoonful befriended a local fashion designer,Jeannie Franklyn, who subsequently designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky.[159] They also struck up a friendship withDavid Crosby, the rhythm guitarist of the Byrds.[160] Crosby had spoken favorably of the Spoonful in interviews as early as August, often promising reporters that they would be the next big group.[161][162] Both he and his bandmateJim McGuinn had been familiar with Sebastian and Yanovsky since their earlier years playing folk with Cass Elliot, and the Spoonful, the Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas remained on close terms in the mid-1960s.[162][nb 14]
Amid their busy TV and live-date schedule, the Spoonful recorded most of their second albumDaydream in four days, from December 13 to 16, atBell Sound Studios in New York City.[165] Some songs for the album were recorded in November, including "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice", and additional sessions took place atColumbia Studios in New York City and RCA Studios inHollywood, California.[153] Boone began "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" as a verse and a basic melodic figure, and Sebastian collaborated with him to complete the song.[166] Kama Sutra issued the song as a non-album single on November 13,[167] and it peaked at number ten on theBillboard Hot 100 in January 1966.[111][153] The sessions forDaydream came ten weeks after the band finished their first album, and the band had had little time to rehearse new material. Owing to the constraints, they recorded some Sebastian compositions which Jacobsen had rejected for inclusion on their debut album, including "Didn't Want to Have to Do It" and "Warm Baby".[168] WhileDo You Believe in Magic contained just five original compositions, eleven out of twelve tracks onDaydream were original. Kama Sutra released the album in March 1966 and it reached number ten on theBillboard Top LPs chart, making it the band's best performing studio album.[153]
Of the songs recorded forDaydream, Sebastian and Yanovsky hoped that their joint composition "It's Not Time Now" would be issued as a single, but Kama Sutra denied the request out of fear that it was aprotest song.[169] The label instead issued "Daydream" in February 1966.[170] The song's release fueled speculation from the press and public about a link between the band and drug use,[171][172] as the press had often incorrectly speculated thatthe Lovin' Spoonful alluded to the spoon used in injectingheroin.[173] The increased speculation was partly driven by the lyrics' use of the term "dream", which by 1966 was sometimes used to connote the experience of takingpsychedelic drugs.[174] Additionally, a trade ad inBillboard accompanying the single's release made several drug allusions, drawing the ire of the band, who had regularly sought to distance themselves from drug associations.[171]
"Daydream" remained on the Hot 100 for twelve weeks, peaking at number two for two weeks in mid-April.[111] The single was kept from the top spot onBillboard's chart bythe Righteous Brothers' song "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration",[175] but it reached number one onCash Box magazine's chart and also reached the top spot in Canada.[176][177] The song's success expanded the Spoonful's popularity such that they were often able to headline their concerts rather than perform as a support act.[178] When the band toured the American South with the Beach Boys from April 1 to 9, 1966,[179] the two groups alternated top billing.[180][nb 15]
Though the Spoonful had achieved quick success in North America, they remained generally unknown in the U.K.[184][185] None of their singles had charted in the country.[186][nb 16] To expand the band's popularity to an international audience, their management organized several live- and TV-dates in England and Sweden for April 1966.[184] Only days before the Spoonful was set to depart to Europe, they were approached to provide a soundtrack forWhat's Up, Tiger Lily?, the directorial debut of the comedianWoody Allen,[192] who knew the band from his work at clubs in Greenwich Village.[193] The band recorded the soundtrack in two days, April 11 and 12, atNational Recording Studios in New York City,[194][195] and they made a brief appearance in the film.[196] The film was a commercial disappointment and received mixed reviews.[197] Issued in August 1966,[198] the soundtrack album reached number 126 on the Billboard LPs chart.[111] Jacobsen later criticized the project as a "goofball album" which distracted the band and stalled their progress.[197]
On April 12,[199] the Spoonful arrived atHeathrow Airport to begin their ten-day tour of England and Sweden.[195][185] Problems which arose during negotiations with theBritish Musicians' Union forced the band to limit the number of appearances they made in Britain.[200][201] In the tour's first week, the band played concerts inBirmingham andManchester, appeared on the television programsTop of the Pops,Ready Steady Go! andThank Your Lucky Stars, played onBBC Radio and attended a party at the London home of the Irish socialiteTara Browne.[202] The band's time in England allowed them to interact with many of Britain's top musicians.[203] On April 18, they performed an invite-only show at theMarquee Club on Wardour Street, Soho, central London.[204][205] Several of Britain's top performers were in attendance,[204] includingJohn Lennon,George Harrison,[206]Ray Davies,[207]Brian Jones,Steve Winwood,Spencer Davis andEric Clapton.[204] The band were warmly received,[208][209] and Lennon and Harrison joined them afterwards into the morning atThe May Fair Hotel inPiccadilly.[208] The next night, following their performance at the Blaises Club inKensington, the band befriended Jones as well.[208]
After flying toStockholm to perform on Swedish television, the Spoonful proceeded to Ireland to attend the 21st-birthday celebration of Browne on April 23.[210] Browne, who then regarded the Spoonful as his favorite band,[211] delayed his party by seven weeks in order to coincide with the band's touring and recording schedule.[212] Browne flew the band to Ireland at his own expense to perform a private show,[213][214] paying them US$10,000 for the performance (equivalent to US$97,000 in 2024).[215][105] Held at theLuggala Estate, aGothic Revival house in theWicklow Mountains, the party was attended by many prominentSwinging London figures, including members ofthe Rolling Stones,Peter Bardens,Anita Pallenberg,[214]Chrissie Shrimpton,John Paul Getty Jr.,Rupert Lycett Green[211] andMike McCartney.[215] Butler recalled that the band's performance was likely substandard, since they were all drunk and high on marijuana.[215] Several guests also partook in the drugLSD,[216] including Butler,[211] and the Spoonful stayed overnight.[217]
The Spoonful flew back to the U.S. on April 24,[218] and reports soon followed that they planned to return later in the year for more British shows.[219][201] The band's morale was high following the April tour, particularly after they had been treated as equals by contemporary performers whom they held in high regard.[220] "Daydream" became a major international hit;[221] by mid-May, it had reached number two on all of the major British singles charts and number one on the SwedishKvällstoppen chart.[186][222][223]
On May 20, 1966, Boone and Yanovsky were arrested in San Francisco for possessing marijuana, then an illegal drug. Police discovered the marijuana after pulling the pair over and searching their vehicle.[224] Boone and Yanovsky spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the Spoonful's road manager, Rich Chiaro.[225] Cavallo and Charley Koppelman flew out to meet the band to begin managing the situation, and they hiredMelvin Belli to be their attorney. Sebastian and Butler were not immediately informed of the nature of the bust, and the band's May 21 performance at theUniversity of California, Berkeley'sGreek Theatre went forward as normal.[226]
We were the first big rock band to get busted for weed. There was no playbook in effect. The record company, the management company – they didn't have an operating procedure for what you do, especially if one of your members has an immigration issue.[61]
At a meeting with San Francisco police and theDistrict Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada.[227] Belli expressed that Yanovsky and Boone were unlikely to win on the merits of their case and that their only way to avoid charges was to cooperate with authorities.[228] The two initially balked at the idea, but they relented to avoid Yanovsky being deported, something they expected would lead to a breakup of the band.[229] Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,[122] directing an undercover operative to their source at local party.[230] In exchange, all charges were dropped, their arrest records were expunged, the two did not need to appear in court and there was no publicity related to their arrest.[231] Their drug source was in turn arrested and served a brief jail sentence.[122]
After the drug case went to court in December 1966, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's bust became more widespread.[232] Theunderground press was especially critical of the band.[122] By early 1967, the Spoonful's shows on the West Coast were sometimes picketed by members of the'60s counterculture. Protesters carried signs which accused the band of being "finks" and traitors to the movement, and they encouraged fans to boycott the band and burn their records.[233] The public revelations of the drug bust added to tensions between Sebastian and Butler on the one hand, and Yanovsky and Boone on the other.[234] Boone later suggested that the boycott hurt the band's commercial performance,[235] but the author Richie Unterberger suggests that the effects have likely been overestimated by other authors, since "most of the people who bought Spoonful records were average teenage Americans, not hippies".[236] In an article recounting the June 1967Monterey International Pop Festival, the author Michael Lydon suggested that the Spoonful was unable to appear at the festival due to complications related to the drug bust.[237]
After having recorded two albums in the second-half of 1965, the Spoonful was stretched for new material in March 1966 when they began sessions for a new single.[239] While searching for inspiration, Sebastian recalled a song composed and informally recorded by his fourteen-year-old brother, Mark.[239][240] Sebastian reworked the lyrics and melody of his younger brother's composition into "Summer in the City", and he also incorporated contributions from Boone and the session musicianArtie Schroeck.[241] Kama Sutra did not issue "Summer in the City" immediately but instead repurposed "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" for release as a single.[242][nb 17] Issued in April,[247] "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" reached number two on theBillboard Hot 100 in June,[111] making it the band's fourth top ten single in America and their second top two record in a row.[248][nb 18] That same month,Do You Believe in Magic re-entered the Top LPs chart,[252] peaking in August at number 32 after spending 16 more weeks on the chart.[111]
In June 1966, while in Los Angeles to play at theGolden Bear nightclub and support the Beach Boys at theHollywood Bowl,[253][254] the Spoonful held a party to debut their newest single.[255] "Summer in the City" was released on July 4.[241][256] One month later,[257] it overtookthe Troggs' "Wild Thing"[258] and became the band's first and only number one single in the U.S.[259] It held the position for three weeks, becoming what the authorJon Savage terms the "American song of the summer".[257] The song also toppedCash Box andRecord World's charts,[260][261] and it was number one in Canada.[262] The musicologistIan MacDonald characterizes the song as a "cutting-edge pop [record]" and one of many "futuristic singles" to appear in 1966, representative of a time period when recorded songs began to employ sounds and effects difficult or impossible to recreate during a live performance; when the Spoonful played the song in concert, Sebastian was unable to both sing and play the piano part simultaneously, and Butler instead performed lead vocal duties.[263] After "Daydream" reached number two in the U.K.,[186] expectations were similarly high for "Summer in the City", but it failed to enter the top five of the British charts;[264] it instead peaked at number eight on theRecord Retailer chart.[186] Coincident with the single's release, the band reiterated their plans for a second tour of Britain and continental Europe, to be held over two weeks in September and October with the English singerDusty Springfield.[265][266][267] Only weeks before it began, the band withdrew from the tour.[268][267][269][nb 19] As they announced their withdrawal, the band announced plans to return to Britain in April 1967 for a three-week tour.[273]
In July 1966,[274] the Spoonful played to a crowd of 65,000 at that year'sNewport Folk Festival inRhode Island.[275]Bob Dylan had generated controversy at the previous year's festival when he performed a set of electric rock,[275][276] but at the 1966 festival, the Spoonful and several other electric bands appeared, includingHowlin' Wolf,Chuck Berry andthe Blues Project.[277] The Spoonful was well received and received no pushback over their appearance.[275][276] In an article recounting the festival forThe New York Times, the criticRobert Shelton suggested that the band's warm reception "reflected the growing acceptance of folk-rock and other amalgamations of contemporary folk songs with electric instruments".[276][278]
Sessions for the Spoonful's third studio album, later released asHums of the Lovin' Spoonful,[258] were originally booked forColumbia Records' 7th Avenue studio in New York from August 16 to September 23, 1966.[264] Recording was delayed after Columbia booked its own artists at the studio.[264] When time allowed them a break from touring, the Spoonful recorded the album across several sessions in New York City at Bell Sound and the 7th Avenue studio, with work also done in Los Angeles.[279] For the first time on one of the band's albums, it consisted of only original material.[280]Henry Diltz, a member of the Modern Folk Quartet, contributed clarinet to "Bes' Friends" and took the pictures which adorned the LP's sleeve.[279] The album was released in November 1966,[281] and it reached number 14 on theBillboard LPs chart.[111] Preorders for the album were diminished after a disappointing reaction accompanied the August release of theWhat's Up, Tiger Lily? soundtrack album.[282]
In addition to the already released "Summer in the City", the sessions forHums of the Lovin' Spoonful produced the song "Rain on the Roof".[283] The possibility of releasing the song as a single generated disagreement among the members of the Spoonful.[279][284] "Summer in the City" featured a harder sound than their previous output,[285][238] and it had attracted new fans to the group after it reached number one on theBillboard Hot 100 chart in August.[286][111] Both Boone and Butler worried that returning to a softer sound with "Rain on the Roof" would potentially alienate the band's new fans,[286][239] but Sebastian countered that the band ought to avoid releasing consecutive singles which sounded too similar, also contending that "Rain on the Roof" would add another dimension to their sound.[286] Issued as a single in October,[287][288] "Rain on the Roof" remained on the Hot 100 for ten weeks and peaked at number ten, making it the Spoonful's sixth consecutive single to reach the top ten.[111] The song also continued the band's success in Europe, charting in several European countries.[279]
Another song fromHums of the Lovin' Spoonful, the country-tinged "Nashville Cats", was issued as a single in December.[198] It reached number eight on the Hot 100, but despite the band's hopes, it failed to crossover into the country market.[279] The single's B-side, "Full Measure", a Boone-Sebastian collaboration, received strong airplay in California and theSouthwestern United States, helping it reach number 87 on the Hot 100 chart.[279][283] InKRLA Beat, the local publication of theSouthern Californian radio stationKRLA, "Full Measure" reached as high as number seven on the station's chart.[289]
In 1966, the Spoonful had five Top Ten singles, making it the band's most successful year to date.[290] The end-of-year issue forBillboard magazine ranked the Spoonful as the third best performing singles artist of the year, after the Beatles andthe Rolling Stones.[291][292] In the magazine's list of thetop records of the year, it placed "Summer in the City", "Daydream" and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind" at numbers 35, 38 and 48, respectively.[293][nb 20] Besides achieving commercial success, the Spoonful in 1966 were among the American bands regarded most highly by critics;[1] a piece inTIME magazine that October placed the band alongside the Mamas and the Papas andSimon & Garfunkel as one of the three best new groups in the country, and Ralph J. Gleason toldLook magazine that the Spoonful were "the best group in the U.S.", adding he was "glad to be alive at a time when I can hear them".[294][295][296]
In mid-October 1966, the Spoonful recordeda soundtrack album for the 1966 filmYou're a Big Boy Now. The film served as the master's thesis of the directorFrancis Ford Coppola, who was then attendingUCLA Film School.[297] After meeting with Coppola in September to discuss the project,[298] Sebastian wrote the songs on his own before presenting them to the musicianArtie Schroeck, who arranged the compositions for an orchestra.[297] After Butler struggled with the drum part, the session musicianBill LaVorgna played in his place.[299]David "Fathead" Newman played saxophone during the sessions andClark Terry playedflügelhorn.[299]
[Not working with the Spoonful anymore] was fine by me, because we had kind of run our course. We were falling apart.[122]
During the editing ofYou're a Big Boy Now, Coppola used the Mamas & the Papas' 1966 single "Monday, Monday" astemp music for one sequence in the film, for which Sebastian wrote "Darling Be Home Soon".[300] Sebastian's composition flips a genre convention by describing a male subject waiting for a female to return home.[301][302] The Spoonful recorded the song in one night, but Sebastian's original vocal track was subsequently wiped. Sebastian later attributed the loss to an accident on the part of an engineer, saying that what is heard on the final recording "is me, a half hour after learning that my original vocal track had been erased". He added: "You can even hear my voice quiver a little at the end. That was me thinking about the vocal we lost and wanting to kill someone."[299] Boone instead suggests that Jacobsen deliberately erased Sebastian's vocal after finding it substandard; Boone recalled that the event marked the angriest he had ever seen Sebastian. Jacobsen was soon fired from working with the band, and Boone suggests that the vocal-erasure "probably played a major role" in Jacobsen's departure.[297]
The lack of collaboration onYou're a Big Boy Now led to consternation from Sebastian's bandmates, especially Yanovsky, whose playing style often relied on improvisation.[297] Yanovsky especially disliked the soundtrack album's lead single, "Darling Be Home Soon", which was issued in early 1967.[303][56] When the Spoonful appeared onThe Ed Sullivan Show in January to promote the release, Yanovskymugged for the camera, miming the lyrics and bouncing up-and-down with a rubber-toad figurine attached to his guitar.[303][122] The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.[303] "Darling Be Home Soon" peaked at number fifteen,[56][303] a major disappointment compared to the band's earlier releases and their first single which failed to reach the Top Ten.[303] Also disappointing was the release of theYou're a Big Boy Now soundtrack, which peaked at number 160 on theBillboard Top LPs chart in May 1967.[111][234] The album's sales were hampered by the release in March of the band's first greatest hits compilation,The Best of The Lovin' Spoonful,[234] which reached number three and became the band's best selling album.[111][234]
I wanted us to go back [to the clubs] and try to recapture that sort of energy ... I had told John [Sebastian] that I thought his songwriting [had] really gone down the toilet and I thought that ... it was time for him to get back into the "risk element".[5]
From late 1966 into early 1967, Sebastian's bandmates felt he was exerting excessive control over the band's direction.[122][304] Boone recalled that the relationship between Sebastian and Yanovsky became especially stilted, since Yanovsky often rebelled rather than articulate his concerns directly.[305] Further agitating the situation, when Koppelman and Rubin renegotiated the band's distribution deal between Kama Sutra and MGM in late 1966, though the band received an increase in pay, the label added a "key-man clause" which specified that the band would only exist if Sebastian was a member.[306][nb 21]
In May 1967, Sebastian convened a meeting with Butler and Boone to discuss the band's future. Sebastian expressed frustration with Yanovsky's increasingly erratic public behavior and his derogatory treatment of his bandmates. Sebastian concluded that either Yanovsky should be fired, or else he was prepared to leave the band.[308] Butler, who had never gotten along with Yanovsky[309] and was increasingly the target of Yanovsky's insults, agreed with Sebastian.[310] In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired.[311] He agreed to continue performing the rest of the group's scheduled dates,[311] but rumors circulated throughout June that the band was breaking up.[312] He last performed with the Spoonful onJune 24, 1967, at theForest Hills Music Festival inQueens, New York.[313][314][315]
The Spoonful hired Jerry Yester to replace Yanovsky on lead guitar duties. Following the May 1967 meeting in which Yanovsky was fired, Sebastian suggested hiring Yester, and no other replacement was considered. Yester had been close to the band and Jacobsen for years, having contributed to the recording of "Do You Believe in Magic".[316] Since mid-1966, when Yester's band the Modern Folk Quartet disbanded,[317] he had been working as a session musician and producer in Los Angeles.[318][nb 22] In early June 1967, he rehearsed with the Spoonful at Sebastian's home inEast Quogue, New York, and he debuted with the band on June 30 at theMemorial Coliseum inPortland, Oregon.[318]
The Spoonful reconvened in August 1967 to begin sessions for their next album,Everything Playing. In need of a producer after Jacobsen's firing, the band initially hoped to work withRoy Halee, who had worked asengineer on the band's earlier recordings, but his continued employment withColumbia Records prevented the collaboration. Koppelman-Rubin instead suggestedJoe Wissert, a Philadelphia-based producer who had recently worked withthe Turtles on their 1967 singles, "Happy Together" and "She'd Rather Be with Me". On Wissert's recommendation, the band moved from Columbia's recording studios to Mira Sound Studios, a new facility in New York City which made use of an AMPEX MM-1000, the industry's first16-track recorder.[319] The band struggled to manage the more complicated recording equipment, a situation worsened when Wissert stopped attending sessions, forcing Yester to produce in his place.[320]
Like other folk-rock acts, the Spoonful struggled to modify their musical approach as the new genre ofpsychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967.[122] The sessions forEverything Today yielded three singles, all three of which continued the band's downward commercial performance when they failed to place in the Top Ten.[321] "Six O'Clock", which had been recorded at Columbia before Jacobsen and Yanovsky were fired, was released in April 1967 and peaked at number 18.[322] For the album's next single, "She Is Still a Mystery", Yester arranged an orchestral accompaniment which includedstrings andwoodwinds played by members of theNew York Philharmonic, along withhorns fromRay Charles' touring band.[322] Released in October,[198] the single reached number 27.[111][322]Everything Playing was issued in December 1967,[198] but received negative reviews from critics and peaked at number 118 in the U.S. after spending seven weeks on the album chart.[323] The album track "Younger Generation" was originally intended for release as a single – a trade ad inBillboard promised it would be "the most talked-about track of 1968" – but its release never followed.[324] Instead, "Money" was issued as a single in January 1968,[325] and it peaked at number 48.[326]
After the major commercial disappointments ofEverything Playing and "Money" in early 1968, Sebastian advised his bandmates that, following the Spoonful's next three months of scheduled tour dates, he planned to leave the group.[327]The Los Angeles Times reported in April that he intended to leave by June.[328] The band last publicly performed on June 1, 1968, atParker Field inRichmond, Virginia.[329][330][nb 23] The following day, Sebastian told reporters that the group had probably played their last show together,[330] and some newspapers reported in July that the band had broken up.[332][333] By September, Sebastian announced his intention to pursue a solo career.[334][335] Sebastian later summed up the band's career as "two glorious years and a tedious one".[336]
Following Sebastian's departure, the remaining members of the band had little contact with one another. Butler received permission from the label to record and produce an album under the Spoonful's name. Released in late 1968,Revelation: Revolution '69 featured neither Boone nor Yester, but is credited to "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler".[337] The album did not chart,[111] and it is generally omitted from lists of the Spoonful's discography.[338] The album's first single, theJohn Stewart-penned "Never Going Back", was recorded in Los Angeles atSunset Sound Recorders before Sebastian departed the group, but he did not play on the recording. It was issued in July 1968 and reached number 73.[339]
The Spoonful were one of several bands to have broken up in 1968.[340] In an article that December,Penny Valentine ofDisc and Music Echo counted the band's breakup and the formation of the folk-rocksupergroupCrosby, Stills & Nash as reflecting a consolidation in the industry, "[tying] up all the loose strings of musical talent in the pop world".[340] Sebastian was offered a position in Crosby, Stills & Nash, but he declined,[341][342] expressing his desire in a contemporary interview to focus on his solo career rather than joining a new group.[340]
Following the Spoonful's dissolution, Sebastian was the only former member whose music career initially appeared promising.[343] Splitting time between New York City and Los Angeles, his first major project after leaving the band was composing the lyrics and music for theBroadway showJimmy Shine,[344] which ran from December 1968 to April 1969.[345] In late 1968, he signed withWarner Records and he recorded a solo album,John B. Sebastian, which included contributions from Crosby, Stills & Nash.[346] Due to a contract dispute, release of the album was delayed by over a year until January 1970.[347][346][nb 24] It reached number 20 on theBillboard Top LPs & Tape chart.[346]
In the decade after he left the Spoonful, Sebastian was active in the concert and festival circuit, and he typically played around 100 shows a year.[108] He made an impromptu appearance at theWoodstock festival in August 1969, in which he played the Spoonful's songs "Darling Be Home Soon" and "Younger Generation".[349] Despite his initial successes, Sebastian struggled as a songwriter for most of the 1970s.[350][351] His 1974 albumTarzana Kid did not chart, but it was produced by Erik Jacobsen, marking the first time the two collaborated since their falling out years earlier.[314][352] After his first five singles were commercial failures, Sebastian's label planned to drop him;[314] he achieved a number one hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back", the theme song for the TV showWelcome Back, Kotter, but he was unable to translate it into continued success.[351]
After leaving the Spoonful, Yanovsky signed as a solo act withBuddha Records, and he continued to be managed by Cavallo.[353] In September 1967, Buddha issued his debut single, "As Long As You're Here",[354][355] which reached number 101 onBillboard'sBubbling Under the Hot 100 chart the following month.[356] In late 1967, he began recording his first solo album,Alive and Well in Argentina, which was released in April 1968.[357] The album received little critical or commercial attention,[358] but it spawned a partnership between Yanovsky and his replacement in the Spoonful, Jerry Yester, who produced the album.[338][357] The two formed "Hair Shirt Productions", which produced recordings in Los Angeles forPat Boone,Tim Buckley and the Fifth Avenue Band.[357]
Yanovsky played inKris Kristofferson's band on a 1970 European tour,[358] including a performance atthat year's Isle of Wight Festival.[359] Sebastian was performing at the festival as a solo act, and Yanovsky joined him on stage during the former's set for several songs.[359] Yanovsky subsequently exited the music business and moved back to Canada, opening the restaurantChez Piggy in 1979 with his wife inKingston, Ontario.[358]
In 1969, Boone attempted to record a solo album, but the project dissolved. That same year, he produced an album for the Virginia-based folk group the Oxpetals, after which he left the music business.[360] Butler pivoted to Broadway acting,[361] and he performed in the rock musicalHair.[359] He also worked as a sound editor in Hollywood,[361] but by later in the 1970s he was no longer active in music and instead drove a taxi cab.[362]
Sebastian resisted subsequent efforts to reform the Spoonful,[336] and the original members of the band only reunited twice.[363] In late 1979, at the invitation of the musicianPaul Simon, the band appeared in his 1980 filmOne-Trick Pony in a concert sequence which featured several 1960s acts.[364] The band did not see each other again until March 2000, when the four original members were inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.[365] Yanovsky died of a heart attack two years later.[366]
Butler, Boone and Yester began touring under the name the Spoonful in 1991,[108] a venture opposed by both Sebastian and Yanovsky.[367] Augmented by a group of touring musicians,[368] the group released a live album,Live at the Hotel Seville, in 1999.[236] Sebastian has since reunited with Boone and Butler once, joining them onstage in 2020 during a benefit concert.[369]
Led by their primary songwriter John Sebastian, the Spoonful took their earliest influences fromblues and jug band music.[370][371] He and Yanovsky intended to be an "electric jug band",[2] and Yanovsky summarized their style as "jug band music without the jugs".[101] The band's music further blended influences from folk, blues, country and rock music,[372][373] updating traditional American music into a modern popular music format.[374] Sebastian later said that the music of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band was particularly influential on the band, and that the Spoonful "redid several of their tunes with only a minimal electric difference".[375][nb 25] Sebastian's songwriting drew from American pop, rock and folk,[377] and he named Motown music and theHolland–Dozier–Holland songwriting team as among his biggest influences.[378][nb 26] He also named his friend and fellow folk musicianFred Neil as influential on him, particularly Neil's "effortless" style, in which a lyric "sound[s] like it just fell out of your mouth, like you hadn't really labored over it".[375] The Spoonful's debut album featured covers of theJim Kweskin Jug Band, Fred Neil, the folk groupthe Holy Modal Rounders, the 1920s blues musicianHenry Thomas and the girl groupthe Ronettes.[379]
[We were] R&B, the blues, bluegrass, and styles of music that are more demanding than this lowly title we have to work with offolk-rock. ... It is a title that the Spoonful immediately hated. It's a title that we understood: we just have to shut up and smile, because they're not gonna give us a new one.[380]
The Spoonful's sound was influential on contemporary musical acts,[174] including bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys,the Kinks,Buffalo Springfield and theGrateful Dead.[381][nb 27] The Spoonful were one of the first acts to be described asfolk rock, a term coined in June 1965[82] to describe music which joined elements of rock-and-roll and folk-music.[386][nb 28] They were among the main instigators of the folk-rock movement in New York City and became the most successful folk-rock band from theU.S. East Coast.[387] In contrast to theprotest songs for which folk had been known, the Spoonful focused on optimistic, feel-good music.[388] The band often termed their sound "good-time music",[372] a phrase which originally described jug band music.[378] Sebastian hoped it could serve as an alternative to "folk rock" – a term he thought "just didn't say it all"[378] – and he used it in his early composition "Good Time Music", which the author Richie Unterberger writes served as "a sort of manifesto of the group's optimism in its jaunty rhythm and celebration of the return of good time music to the radio".[389] Among contemporary critics in 1966, Ralph J. Gleason wrote that the Spoonful seemed to be neither rock 'n' roll nor folk rock,[390] whileRobert Shelton wrote they were "folk-rock at its most appealing", with "one foot in old-time blues, jug-band music and ragtime and the other in the modern whirl of rock 'n' roll".[391]
The Spoonful played on their own recordings and were against the use of studio musicians.[392] The band sought to avoid being typecast and aimed to sound different with each single,[286][393] an approach they developed after seeing other groups fail when repeating the sound of an earlier hit.[394] As part of their efforts, the group incorporated a variety of instruments on their recordings,[377] includingbass marimba,chimes,Irish harp andHohnerTubon, as well asresonator,pedal steel and open-tunedtwelve-string guitars.[395] The band's music prominently featured the autoharp,[377] a stringed instrument with buttons which, when depressed, produce preset combinations of chords, leaving it typically used as a rhythm instrument.[396] The instrument was mostly associated with folk music,[397] but few folk-rock or rock acts had employed it.[90] Sebastian amplified his autoharp by affixing aukulelecontact microphone onto the back of it and then plugging it into an amplifier,[93][90] a technique he developed in the rehearsal room before the band's first recording session.[3] To generate morebottom end, the band added piano underneath,[3] which Sebastian later said "create[d] the effect of a huge autoharp".[112]
Despite their origins in folk music, Sebastian and Yanovsky were early fans of rock and roll. The two each played electric before acoustic guitars, and they enjoyed listening to the guitaristsDuane Eddy andLink Wray.[398] Sebastian recalled that when the two first met, he was shocked by Yanovsky's "all over the place" guitar playing, which he thought drew from the pianistFloyd Cramer and the blues guitaristElmore James simultaneously.[3][nb 29] He recalled that Yanovsky, by contrast, later admitted to being intimidated by Sebastian's clean playing, but that this became a guide to the pair's work together, where he provided a foundation onto which Yanovsky could "come in and throw flowers".[3] Yanovsky's playing relied heavily on improvisation,[297] and he often drew from country music, leading the commentatorPeter Doggett to describe him as "the missing link between fiftiesrockabilly and sixties folk-rock".[399]
Sebastian played a 1957 sunburstGibson Les Paul electric guitar in live performances and on the band's recordings,[400][401] and he used aHeritage Gibson as his main acoustic guitar.[156][nb 30] Yanovsky's main guitar was aGuild Thunderbird,[403][404] which he bought fromManny's Music inMidtown Manhattan around 1964.[403] Soon after recording "Do You Believe in Magic" in June 1965, he replaced the guitar's original Guildpickups withhumbuckers, which he thought "weren't quite as warm the originals, but they aged nicely".[405] He also sometimes played aFender Esquire.[404] He favored aFender Super Reverb as his standard amplifier, which he later said managed to add extra bottom end while also being loud,[403] and which he thought sounded similar to a pedal-steel guitar.[112]
The Spoonful's image was influential on their contemporaries.[174] The band's stage act was both eccentric and extroverted,[372] driven by Yanovsky, who Jacobsen later said "invented the hole-y jeans, falling apart T-shirts, crazy rock guitar antics on stage, the whole subsequent thing of rock 'n' roll guitar[ists] being wild, crazy individualists".[377] The authorBob Stanley later described the band's look as a clash between that of theBeatniks and the Beatles,[406] and the American men's fashion magazineEsquire produced a fashion spread of the band in its June 1966 issue, detailing how the group sported "mod gear", but from New York'sSeventh Avenue rather than London'sCarnaby Street.[407]
The group wore clothes with stripes and spots,[406] stripes having been popularized byBrian Jones.[408] Sebastian often woredenim[406] andgranny glasses,[174] the latter of which he adopted fromFritz Richmond,[78] and which John Lennon subsequently adopted in September 1966.[409][410] After the band met the fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn in December 1965 on the Sunset Strip, Franklyn designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky.[159] Yanovsky is generally recognized as the first rock musician to wearcowboy hats and fringedbuckskin jackets,[408] and his wardrobe also consisted offur coats,[174] mod ties,corduroy jackets, vests andboutonnières.[408]
Current members[nb 31]
Past members
Studio albums
Soundtrack albums
The recording came together quickly. It didn't hurt that [session drummer] Gary Chester, who happened to be in the building, played tambourine on the track. He kept us from speeding up.
Last fall the Spoonful appeared at Mother's on Broadway for two weeks and later at the hungry i. They also played the first of the really successful rock 'n roll dances here presented by The Family Dog. It was those productions which set the pattern for the whole dancing scene that exists now.
The Lovin' Spoonful ... opening tonight for a one-week run at the hungry i.
The Lovin' Spoonful, Larry Hankin and the Charlatans play a dance concert tonight at the Longshore Hall sponsored by the Family Dog ...
The Lovin' Spoonful ... will be at the Autorama ... on Saturday [October 23] to sign autographs. Their first L.P. album, 'Do You Believe in Magic' will be on sale for the first time at the Autorama.
Do You Believe in Magic (Pye Int.) ... Out tomorrow [Friday, October 1, 1965].
Sales [of 'Do You Believe in Magic'] are being affected by a near-copy turned out by another group ...
The Lovin' Spoonful arrived in Britain on Tuesday – one day earlier than expected ...
I saw the Lovin' Spoonful and they were nice and easy.
The Lovin' Spoonful will return to Britain in September for concerts, Tito Burns annonuced this week.
After breaking the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind' in Canada prior to its release in the U.S. ... Quality Records has another Canadian exclusive from Kama Sutra with the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Jug Band Music,' ...
Two nites [sic] only June 22 & 23: The Lovin' Spoonful ... [at] the Golden Bear ...
Dusty Springfield and the Lovin' Spoonful are to tour Britain for two weeks at the end of September [1966]. ... The tour will probably open at the Finsbury Park Empire on September 27 and will play major concert dates.
[The] Spanish group Los Bravos [are] replacing the Spoonful on Dusty Springfield's autumn British tour ...
The New Vaudeville Band have replaced Los Bravos on the Dusty Springfield–Alan Price Set tour. ... Before the tour began, the Lovin' Spoonful said they would not appear and Los Bravos were signed to take their place.
The best of the new groups ...
Some older, wiser heads are just as caught up – among them, jazz critic Ralph Gleason, who says, 'They're the best group in the U.S. I'm glad to be alive at a time when I can hear them.'
[I]n the pop world recently ... [s]everal groups have been affected by break-ups ... among these ... [are] the MFQ – who are now completely defunct as a group ...
'We have watched too many groups for too long have a hit and then duplicate the sound on following records,' says Sebastian. 'It's instant death.'
When The Lovin' Spoonful come to WHBPAC next week, [Steve] Boone will be playing with three new band members ...
Today, the band tours with founding member, Steve Boone, and Jeff Alan Ross, Bill Cinque, Rob Bonfiglio and Mike Auturi.
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