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The Lovin' Spoonful is a Canadian-American folk-rock band formed in Greenwich 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 JulyTemplate:Nbsp1965 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 songwriter John Sebastian, the Spoonful took their earliest influences from jug band and blues music, reworking them into a popular 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 American Template:Nowrap and they were the year's third-best-selling singles act in the U.S., after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. As psychedelia 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) and Zal Yanovsky (guitar, vocals) were active in Greenwich Village's folk-music scene. Aiming to create an "electric jug band",Template:Sfn they recruited the local rock musicians Steve Boone (bass guitar) and Joe Butler (drums, vocals). The four-piece lineup honed their sound at New York nightclubs before they began recording for Kama Sutra Records with the producer Erik Jacobsen. In MayTemplate:Nbsp1966, 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 MayTemplate:Nbsp1967, replacing him with Jerry Yester, and Yanovsky commenced a brief and commercially unsuccessful solo career. The original iteration of the Spoonful last publicly performed in JuneTemplate:Nbsp1968, 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 the Rock 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 name the Lovin' Spoonful in 1991.
HistoryEdit
1964–1965: FormationEdit
Greenwich Village and folk musicEdit
The co-founders of the Lovin' Spoonful – John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky – met on February 9, 1964, at the apartment of Cass Elliot, a mutual friend and fellow musician.<ref>Template:Harvnb and Template:Harvnb: (met the night the Beatles debuted on Ed Sullivan); Template:Harvnb: (February 9, 1964).</ref>Template:Refn Elliot was holding a party that night to watch the English rock band the Beatles make their American television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref> Elliot, Sebastian and Yanovsky were all active in the folk-music scene in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City,Template:Sfn and the three were greatly influenced by the Beatles' performance; Sebastian later reflected, "It affected Template:Em heavilyTemplate:Nbsp... Template:Em [meaning] my specific generation".Template:Sfn Later that night, Elliot encouraged Sebastian and Yanovsky to play guitars,Template:Sfn and Sebastian remembered discovering they had "a tremendous affinity" for one another.Template:Sfn
Sebastian, the son of the classical harmonica player John Sebastian Sr., grew up in a Village apartment which neighbored Washington Square Park.Template:Sfn The younger Sebastian often went to the park to play music,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and he also played in rock bands as a teenager at his prep school in New Jersey.Template:Sfn He became a multi-instrumentalist, being proficient on guitar, harmonica, piano and the autoharp.Template:Sfn Beginning in the early 1960s, he worked as a studio musician.Template:Sfn
Yanovsky grew up in Downsview, a suburb of Toronto, Canada, and he was enmeshed as a guitar player in the city's folk-music scene, which centered on the Yorkville neighborhood.Template:Sfn Denny Doherty, another musician active in Yorkville,Template:Sfn invited Yanovsky to join his folk group, the Halifax Three, which later relocated to Greenwich Village.Template:Sfn After the Halifax Three broke up in JuneTemplate:Nbsp1964,Template:Sfn Elliot recruited Yanovsky and Doherty to join her own group, the Mugwumps.Template:Sfn That same year, Sebastian briefly played with another New York folk group, the Even Dozen Jug Band, before he was also recruited into the Mugwumps to play harmonica.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
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."Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn After the Mugwumps dissolved in lateTemplate:Nbsp1964, Sebastian and Yanovsky began planning to form their own group,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which they envisioned as an electric jug band.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn 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."Template:Sfn Yanovsky contacted Bob 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.Template:Sfn
In 1964, Sebastian lived in an apartment on Prince Street in Little Italy, a Manhattan neighborhood south of Greenwich Village. That year, Erik Jacobsen, the former banjo player of the bluegrass band Knob Lick Upper 10,000, moved into the apartment next door,Template:Sfn and the two soon bonded over their shared interests of smoking marijuana and listening to eclectic music.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Like Sebastian, Jacobsen had been affected by the new sound of the Beatles; he later recalled that while touring in earlyTemplate:Nbsp1964, he listened to the group for the first time on a jukebox: "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."Template:Sfn As part of his effort to switch focus towards production, Jacobsen recorded demos for musicians in the Village,Template:Sfn including Sebastian's compositions "Warm Baby" and Template:Nowrap
Earliest lineupEdit
From 1962 to 1964, Steve Boone played bass guitar in several Long Island rock bands with the drummer Joe Butler.Template:Sfn 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 to the Sellouts and moved to Greenwich Village, holding a residency at Trude Heller's club as one of the neighborhood's earliest rock groups.Template:Sfn
In DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1964,Template:Sfn at the insistence of Butler, Boone went to the Village Music Hall, a small music club on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village.Template:Sfn There, he met Sebastian and Yanovsky,Template:Sfn and though he had no background in folk music,Template:Sfn Boone soon bonded with the two over their shared musical influences, including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Motown, the Beatles and other British Invasion acts.Template:Sfn Sebastian played him his composition "Good Time Music" – the lyrics of which derided early 1960s rock and roll while extolling the Beatles and other new music – and the three musicians jammed different Chuck Berry and R&B numbers.Template:Sfn Sebastian invited Boone to Jacobsen's apartment afterwards, where Boone met Jacobsen as well as Jerry Yester of the Modern Folk Quartet, a local folk music group.Template:Sfn That week, Boone attended Sebastian's performance at a Greenwich Village club.Template:Sfn Sebastian's show, made up of a quickly assembled group of Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Buzzy Linhart and Felix Pappalardi, greatly impressed Boone,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn who later remembered it as "one of the most significant nights in my musical life."Template:Sfn He also recalled: "I was stunned. I had never heard such power in a folk group before."Template:Sfn The performance motivated Boone to enter the Greenwich Village folk scene and join Sebastian and Yanovsky's group.Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn Buchner, who went by the stagename Jan Carl, was the manager of the Bull's Head Inn, a small inn located in Bridgehampton 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 DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1964 and JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp1965, and they also played at local bars in Bridgehampton at night.Template:Sfn
In lateTemplate:Nbsp1964 and earlyTemplate:Nbsp1965, to keep earning money before his new band had earned a contract, Sebastian continued performing as a studio musician on other artists' recordings.Template:Sfn In this period, he played harmonica on progressive folk records for several acts, including Fred Neil, Jesse Colin Young and Judy Collins.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn In JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp1965,Template:Sfn the musician Bob Dylan asked Sebastian to play bass guitar on his newest album, Bringing It All Back Home.Template:Sfn The album's first day of sessions, JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp13, 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.Template:Sfn<ref name="OB">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Refn 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.Template:Sfn Dylan invited Sebastian to return for a separate session held that evening,Template:Sfn in which they recorded a remake of the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues".<ref name="OB" /> Boone – one of the few people Sebastian knew with a car and driver's license – offered to drive him to the session.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Sebastian was not a trained bass player and, after struggling to play the part, he suggested that Boone play instead,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but neither musician's contributions ended up on the final album.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
First live datesEdit
In earlyTemplate:Nbsp1965, 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.Template:Sfn Fritz Richmond, the washtub bass player for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, suggested to Sebastian the name the Lovin' Spoonful,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn a reference to the lyrics of the song "Coffee Blues" by the country blues musician Mississippi John Hurt,Template:Sfn with whom Sebastian had previously worked.Template:Sfn Sebastian and Yanovsky were enthusiastic about the suggestion and adopted it as the band's name.Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn The Night Owl was formerly an after-hours bowling alley at West 3rd and MacDougal Streets, which Marra had recently converted into a 125-person capacity coffeehouse and restaurant for folk music acts.Template:Sfn The band made their first live performances in late January 1965 at the Night Owl, holding a two-week residency.Template:Sfn 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 LovinTemplate:'" and "My Gal") and rock and roll ("Route 66", "Alley Oop" and "Almost Grown").Template:SfnTemplate:Refn The band received a mixed reception, due in part to their loud playing style in the small venue.Template:Sfn Marra was unimpressed and returned to booking folk acts.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
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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.Template:Sfn The band had little money and had been living with Elliot in her Village apartment at the Hotel Albert.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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 the Vietnam War.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
While waiting to be signed to a record label, the Spoonful played at night clubs on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, including Cafe Wha? and Café Bizarre.<ref>Template:Harvnb (waiting, Café Bizarre); Template:Harvnb: (MacDougal); Template:Harvnb: (Cafe Wha?).</ref> The band held a brief residency at Café Bizarre,Template:Sfn playing several sets a night for six days a week,Template:Sfn leading Sebastian to later reflect, "We learned more at that crappy little club than almost any other gig."Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn and in May of 1965, he offered for the band to return to performing at the Night Owl.Template:Sfn The Spoonful shared their bill at the club with two other electric groups whom Marra booked, Danny Kalb's band the Blues Project and the Modern Folk Quartet,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn the latter of which Sebastian sometimes filled in for on drums.Template:Sfn The Night Owl's triple-bill was immediately successful,Template:Sfn and other established acts sometimes came to watch, including members of the American band the Byrds and Mary Travers of the folk-trio Peter, Paul and Mary.Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
On JuneTemplate:Nbsp7 and 8, 1965,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> the Spoonful performed at Club 47, a folk music club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Boone remembered feeling hesitant to perform at a club known strictly for folk music,Template:Sfn but Sebastian recalled that he and Yanovsky were immediately enthusiastic at the prospect of challenging folk enthusiasts: "Did we want to Template:Em in that room!Template:Nbsp... We were going to be face to face with the folkies at last."Template:Sfn The band played at the venue at the suggestion of Fritz Richmond,Template:Sfn who encouraged the group by pointing to Bob Dylan's recent transition to electrified rock,Template:Sfn first heard three months earlier with the release of "Subterranean Homesick Blues",Template:Sfn and the newfound popularity of the Byrds,Template:Sfn whose folk rock cover of Dylan's song "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number one in North America that month.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The term "folk rock" had been coined in the JuneTemplate:Nbsp12 issue of the American music magazine Billboard by the journalist Eliot Siegel, who used the term principally to describe the music of the Byrds.Template:Sfn Siegel also counted "the Living Spoonfull"Template: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.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Refn
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.Template:Sfn Years later, Sebastian recalled a moment from the first set: Template:Quote During the second set, the band received a warm response from the remaining crowd.Template:Sfn In retrospect, the author Richie Unterberger describes the Spoonful's appearance as a "watershed" moment in the history of folk rock.Template:Sfn The rock journalist Paul Williams attended the shows, and his review of the performances for the magazine Folkin' Around marked his earliest work as a music writer.Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn
"Do You Believe in Magic", Kama SutraEdit
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Early in the Spoonful's May residency at the Night Owl,Template:Sfn Sebastian wrote a new song, "Do You Believe in Magic", which explored the transformative power of music.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The girl stood in contrast to the older beatnik crowd who typically attended folk performances,Template:Sfn and Sebastian recalled that "[she was] dancing like Template:Em danced – and not like the last generation danced".Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn Sebastian composed the song the following night,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the band worked together at the Albert to finish its arrangement.Template:Sfn
The Spoonful was enthusiastic about "Do You Believe in Magic" and hoped to record a demo of the song to flog to record companies.Template:Sfn In JuneTemplate:Nbsp1965,Template:Sfn Jacobsen fronted a session with his own money at Bell Sound Studios in New York, where the band recorded "Do You Believe in Magic" and several other songs.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Refn Jacobsen invited Yester to participate in the session, adding both piano and backing vocals,Template:Sfn and the session musician Gary Chester played tambourine.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Jacobsen and Cavallo brought an acetate disc of the demo to numerous record labels, all of which turned down an opportunity to sign the band.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn After attending one of the Spoonful's performances at the Night Owl,Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Refn
Elektra Records approached the Spoonful and offered to sign them.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Elektra regularly produced acts from Greenwich Village, including the Even Dozen Jug Band and the 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,Template:Sfn and that they would not be clearly identified as a rock act if they signed at a folk-oriented label.Template:Sfn Cavallo approached Paul Rothchild and Jac Holzman of Elektra and said the band needed an advance of $10,000 before they could sign (Template:Inflation).Template:SfnTemplate:Inflation/fn 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.Template:Sfn The band instead signed a side-deal with Elektra,Template:Sfn which had them record four songs, including Sebastian's song "Good Time Music".Template:Sfn 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 bitTemplate:Nbsp... [so we] allowed him to have those sides.Template:Sfn The label later included the four songs on the compilation album What's Shakin', released the following year.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The Spoonful signed with Koppelman-Rubin, an entertainment company,Template:Sfn who signed the band to Kama Sutra Records in JuneTemplate:Nbsp1965.Template:Sfn As part of the deal, MGM Records distributed the records, which Kama Sutra released for Koppelman-Rubin.Template:Sfn The arrangement's format of multiple middlemen left little in profits for the band.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Sebastian later said that not signing with Elektra was "the worst decision I ever made in my life".Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn The label issued it in the U.S. on July 20, 1965,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 a month later,Template:Sfn remaining on the chart for thirteen weeks and peaking in October at number nine.<ref name="Billboard chart history">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
1965–1966: American popularityEdit
Touring, debut albumEdit
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The release of "Do You Believe in Magic" in JulyTemplate:Nbsp1965 propelled the Spoonful to nationwide fame in the U.S. within weeks.<ref name="Mix">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The band made their American television debut on the channel 10 show of the Miami disc jockey Rick Shaw, and they also taped appearances for the TV programs American Bandstand, The Merv Griffin Show and The Lloyd Thaxton Show.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Beginning in August, the band toured the West Coast of the United States.Template:Sfn In San Francisco, the band held a two-week residency at Mother's Nightclub,Template:Sfn<ref name="Gleason 5/15/66">Template:Cite news</ref> which then advertised itself as the "world's first psychedelic nightclub",Template:Sfn and on AugustTemplate:Nbsp7,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> they performed in-front of 35,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, as one of several support acts for the English pop group Herman's Hermits, alongside the Turtles and the Bobby Fuller Four.Template:Sfn In LosTemplate:NbspAngeles, the Spoonful played at several clubs on Sunset Strip, including Ciro's, the Whisky a Go GoTemplate:Sfn and The Crescendo (later renamed The Trip).<ref name="Mix" />Template:Sfn
In OctoberTemplate:Nbsp1965, the Spoonful returned to the West Coast,Template:Sfn where their image and sound proved influential in the emerging San Francisco scene,Template:Sfn<ref name=Meriwether /> particularly in the city's Haight-Ashbury district, a center of the 1960s counterculture.<ref name=Meriwether>Template:Cite journal</ref> The band appeared for a week at the hungry i,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> one of the most prominent clubs in America's folk-music scene,Template:Sfn where they were seen by the San Francisco ChronicleTemplate:'s jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Gleason quoted Independent">Template:Cite news</ref> 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".<ref name="Gleason quoted Independent" /> He concluded the band was "vital and alive and, I believe, important".<ref name="Gleason quoted Independent" /> On OctoberTemplate:Nbsp24,<ref name=10/24/65>Template:Cite news</ref> the Spoonful headlined a dance party at the Longshoreman's Union Hall in the city's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood.<ref name="Gleason 5/15/66" /><ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref> Organized by the concert-production collective Family Dog Productions, the event combined rock music with light shows and psychedelic drugs,Template:Sfn and it was among the earliest events of its kind in San Francisco;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Jacobsen reflected, "That whole idea of going and listening to music and getting high started there".Template:Sfn In attendance at the Longshoreman's show were members of the Grateful Dead,Template:Sfn an acoustic-folk group, who were inspired by the Spoonful's performance to similarly "go electric" in their style.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
Amid their touring schedule, the Spoonful recorded tracks for their debut album, Do You Believe in Magic.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn The band recorded thirteen songs across several sessions between June and SeptemberTemplate:Nbsp1965, mostly at Bell Sound in New York, and they also recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood, 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.Template:Sfn The album's five original compositions were all credited to Sebastian, including "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?",Template:Sfn which he based on a experience as a child at summer camp when he fell in love with twin sisters.Template:Sfn Pointing to the success of the Beatles and the Byrds, the Spoonful's label encouraged the band to trade lead vocal responsibilities;Template:Sfn on Do 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").Template:Sfn The album first went on sale on OctoberTemplate:Nbsp23, 1965, when the band held an autograph session in Pleasant Hill, California,<ref>Template:Cite newspaper</ref> and Kama Sutra issued the album nationwide in November.Template:Sfn It debuted on the Billboard Top LPs chart on December 4,Template:Sfn and it initially ran on the chart for 19 weeks, peaking in FebruaryTemplate:Nbsp1966 at number 71.<ref>Template:Multiref2</ref>
By lateTemplate:Nbsp1965, the Spoonful had made appearances on the most popular American television variety shows, including Where the Action Is, Shindig! and Hullabaloo.Template:Sfn Executives from NBC approached Cavallo and offered the band the opportunity to star in their own television series, The Monkees.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The executives Bob Rafelson and Bert 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 to The Monkees and were worried that their ability to create and play their own music would be limited by the venture. They declined the offer.Template:Sfn Rafelson later said that the Spoonful was the only existing group considered for the show before they began auditioning individual actors and musicians in SeptemberTemplate:Nbsp1965.Template:Sfn
DaydreamEdit
In NovemberTemplate:Nbsp1965, the Spoonful embarked on a 19-day package-tour with the American girl group the Supremes.Template:Sfn<ref name=Lewis>Template:Cite news</ref> The acts performed at colleges across the southern U.S.,<ref name=Lewis /> beginning in Lafayette, Louisiana, on NovemberTemplate:Nbsp10.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn Both acts traveled by bus and partied together, along with members of the Supremes' backing band,Template:Sfn the Funk Brothers, billed as the Earl Van Dyke Orchestra.Template:Sfn The Spoonful generally enjoyed the tour but found it physically exhausting. Sebastian additionally missed his girlfriend, Loretta "Lorey" Kaye.Template:Sfn Near the tour's end, in an effort to raise his own spirits, he composed "Daydream" while riding on the bus through North Carolina,Template:Sfn drawing inspiration from the Supremes' 1964 singles "Baby Love" and "Where Did Our Love Go".Template:Sfn A stop in Savannah, Georgia inspired the beginnings of "Jug Band Music",Template:Sfn which Boone later said "recalled pleasant visions of the tour" for him and his bandmates.Template:Sfn
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 film The Big T.N.T. Show.Template:Sfn After filming on 29–30Template:NbspNovember,Template:Sfn the band remained in Los Angeles to do several weeks of a residency at the Trip, a short-lived nightclub on Sunset Boulevard,Template:Sfn where Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys saw them perform.Template:Sfn During their stay, the Spoonful befriended a local fashion designer, Jeannie Franklyn, who subsequently designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky.Template:Sfn They also struck up a friendship with David Crosby, the rhythm guitarist of the Byrds.Template:Sfn Crosby had spoken favorably of the Spoonful in interviews as early as August, often promising reporters that they would be the next big group.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Both he and his bandmate Jim 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
Amid their busy TV and live-date schedule, the Spoonful recorded most of their second album Daydream in four days, from DecemberTemplate:Nbsp13 to 16, at Bell Sound Studios in New York City.Template:Sfn Some songs for the album were recorded in November, including "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice", and additional sessions took place at Columbia Studios in New York City and RCA Studios in Hollywood, California.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Kama Sutra issued the song as a non-album single on NovemberTemplate:Nbsp13,Template:Sfn and it peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp1966.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />Template:Sfn The sessions for Daydream 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".Template:Sfn While Do You Believe in Magic contained just five original compositions, eleven out of twelve tracks on Daydream were original. Kama Sutra released the album in MarchTemplate:Nbsp1966 and it reached number ten on the Billboard Top LPs chart, making it the band's best performing studio album.Template:Sfn
Of the songs recorded for Daydream, 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 a protest song.<ref name="NME May 20, 1966">Template:Cite magazine</ref> The label instead issued "Daydream" in FebruaryTemplate:Nbsp1966.Template:Sfn The song's release fueled speculation from the press and public about a link between the band and drug use,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn as the press had often incorrectly speculated that the Lovin' Spoonful alluded to the spoon used in injecting heroin.Template:Sfn 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 taking psychedelic drugs.Template:Sfn Additionally, a trade ad in Billboard 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.Template:Sfn
"Daydream" remained on the Hot 100 for twelve weeks, peaking at number two for two weeks in mid-April.<ref name="Billboard chart history" /> The single was kept from the top spot on BillboardTemplate:'s chart by the Righteous Brothers' song "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration",<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> but it reached number one on Cash Box magazine's chart and also reached the top spot in Canada.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.Template:Sfn When the band toured the American South with the Beach Boys from AprilTemplate:Nbsp1 to 9, 1966,Template:Sfn the two groups alternated top billing.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
1966: International popularityEdit
What's Up, Tiger Lily? soundtrack; European tourEdit
Though the Spoonful had achieved quick success in North America, they remained generally unknown in the U.K.Template:Sfn<ref name="Alan Jones" /> None of their singles had charted in the country.<ref name="UK charts" />Template:Refn To expand the band's popularity to an international audience, their management organized several live- and TV-dates in England and Sweden for AprilTemplate:Nbsp1966.Template:Sfn Only days before the Spoonful was set to depart to Europe, they were approached to provide a soundtrack for What's Up, Tiger Lily?, the directorial debut of the comedian Woody Allen,Template:Sfn who knew the band from his work at clubs in Greenwich Village.Template:Sfn The band recorded the soundtrack in two days, April 11 and 12, at National Recording Studios in New York City,<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Runcorn Guardian" /> and they made a brief appearance in the film.Template:Sfn The film was a commercial disappointment and received mixed reviews.Template:Sfn Issued in AugustTemplate:Nbsp1966,Template:Sfn the soundtrack album reached number 126 on the Billboard LPs chart.<ref name="Billboard chart history" /> Jacobsen later criticized the project as a "goofball album" which distracted the band and stalled their progress.Template:Sfn
On AprilTemplate:Nbsp12,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> the Spoonful arrived at Heathrow Airport to begin their ten-day tour of England and Sweden.<ref name="Runcorn Guardian">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Alan Jones">Template:Cite news</ref> Problems which arose during negotiations with the British Musicians' Union forced the band to limit the number of appearances they made in Britain.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Disc 5/14/66">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the tour's first week, the band played concerts in Birmingham and Manchester, appeared on the television programs Top of the Pops, Ready Steady Go! and Thank Your Lucky Stars, played on BBC Radio and attended a party at the London home of the Irish socialite Tara Browne.Template:Sfn The band's time in England allowed them to interact with many of Britain's top musicians.Template:Sfn On AprilTemplate:Nbsp18, they performed an invite-only show at the Marquee Club on Wardour Street, Soho, central London.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Several of Britain's top performers were in attendance,Template:Sfn including John Lennon, George Harrison,Template:Sfn Ray Davies,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Brian Jones, Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Eric Clapton.Template:Sfn The band were warmly received,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Lennon and Harrison joined them afterwards into the morning at The May Fair Hotel in Piccadilly.Template:Sfn The next night, following their performance at the Blaises Club in Kensington, the band befriended Jones as well.Template:Sfn
After flying to Stockholm to perform on Swedish television, the Spoonful proceeded to Ireland to attend the 21st-birthday celebration of Browne on AprilTemplate:Nbsp23.Template:Sfn Browne, who then regarded the Spoonful as his favorite band,Template:Sfn delayed his party by seven weeks in order to coincide with the band's touring and recording schedule.Template:Sfn Browne flew the band to Ireland at his own expense to perform a private show,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn paying them US$10,000 for the performance (Template:Inflation).Template:SfnTemplate:Inflation/fn Held at the Luggala Estate, a Gothic Revival house in the Wicklow Mountains, the party was attended by many prominent Swinging London figures, including members of the Rolling Stones, Peter Bardens, Anita Pallenberg,Template:Sfn Chrissie Shrimpton, John Paul Getty Jr., Rupert Lycett GreenTemplate:Sfn and Mike McCartney.Template:Sfn Butler recalled that the band's performance was likely substandard, since they were all drunk and high on marijuana.Template:Sfn Several guests also partook in the drug LSD,Template:Sfn including Butler,Template:Sfn and the Spoonful stayed overnight.Template:Sfn
The Spoonful flew back to the U.S. on AprilTemplate:Nbsp24,<ref name="Disc 4/23/66">Template:Cite magazine</ref> and reports soon followed that they planned to return later in the year for more British shows.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Disc 5/14/66" /> 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.Template:Sfn "Daydream" became a major international hit;Template:Sfn by mid-May, it had reached number two on all of the major British singles charts and number one on the Swedish Kvällstoppen chart.<ref name="UK charts">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Multiref2</ref>Template:Sfn
Marijuana bustEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} On MayTemplate:Nbsp20, 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.Template:Sfn Boone and Yanovsky spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the Spoonful's road manager, Rich Chiaro.Template:Sfn Cavallo and Charley Koppelman flew out to meet the band to begin managing the situation, and they hired Melvin 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 the University of California, Berkeley's Greek Theatre went forward as normal.Template:Sfn
At a meeting with San Francisco police and the District Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,Template:Sfn directing an undercover operative to their source at local party.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Their drug source was in turn arrested and served a brief jail sentence.Template:Sfn
After the drug case went to court in DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1966, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's bust became more widespread.Template:Sfn The underground press was especially critical of the band.Template:Sfn By earlyTemplate:Nbsp1967, 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Boone later suggested that the boycott hurt the band's commercial performance,Template:Sfn 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".<ref name="AllMusic bio">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In an article recounting the JuneTemplate:Nbsp1967 Monterey 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Originally written in 1967 for Newsweek magazine, whose editors reduced it from 43 to 10 paragraphs. Printed in full in the 2003 book Flashbacks Template:ISBN.</ref>
"Summer in the City"Edit
{{#invoke:Listen|main}}
After having recorded two albums in the second-half of 1965, the Spoonful was stretched for new material in MarchTemplate:Nbsp1966 when they began sessions for a new single.<ref name="Summer in the City UNCUT">Template:Cite magazine</ref> While searching for inspiration, Sebastian recalled a song composed and informally recorded by his fourteen-year-old brother, Mark.<ref name="Summer in the City UNCUT" /><ref name=nytimes>Template:Cite news</ref> 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 musician Artie Schroeck.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Issued in April,Template:Sfn "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in June,<ref name="Billboard chart history" /> making it the band's fourth top ten single in America and their second top two record in a row.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn That same month, Do You Believe in Magic re-entered the Top LPs chart,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> peaking in August at number 32 after spending 16 more weeks on the chart.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />
In JuneTemplate:Nbsp1966, while in LosTemplate:NbspAngeles to play at the Golden Bear nightclub and support the Beach Boys at the Hollywood Bowl,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn the Spoonful held a party to debut their newest single.<ref name="Taylor 6/18/66">Template:Cite magazine</ref> "Summer in the City" was released on JulyTemplate:Nbsp4.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn One month later,Template:Sfn it overtook the Troggs' "Wild Thing"Template:Sfn and became the band's first and only number one single in the U.S.Template:Sfn It held the position for three weeks, becoming what the author Jon Savage terms the "American song of the summer".Template:Sfn The song also topped Cash Box and Record WorldTemplate:'s charts,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and it was number one in Canada.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The musicologist Ian 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.Template:Sfn After "Daydream" reached number two in the U.K.,<ref name="UK charts" /> expectations were similarly high for "Summer in the City", but it failed to enter the top five of the British charts;Template:Sfn it instead peaked at number eight on the Record Retailer chart.<ref name="UK charts" /> 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 singer Dusty Springfield.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Spoonful-Springfield tour">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Only weeks before it began, the band withdrew from the tour.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Spoonful-Springfield tour "/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Refn As they announced their withdrawal, the band announced plans to return to Britain in AprilTemplate:Nbsp1967 for a three-week tour.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In JulyTemplate:Nbsp1966,Template:Sfn the Spoonful played to a crowd of 65,000 at that year's Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.Template:Sfn Bob Dylan had generated controversy at the previous year's festival when he performed a set of electric rock,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but at the 1966 festival, the Spoonful and several other electric bands appeared, including Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and the Blues Project.Template:Sfn The Spoonful was well received and received no pushback over their appearance.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In an article recounting the festival for The New York Times, the critic Robert 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".Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Hums of the Lovin' SpoonfulEdit
Sessions for the Spoonful's third studio album, later released as Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful,Template:Sfn were originally booked for Columbia Records' 7th Avenue studio in New York from August 16 to September 23, 1966.Template:Sfn Recording was delayed after Columbia booked its own artists at the studio.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn For the first time on one of the band's albums, it consisted of only original material.Template:Sfn Henry Diltz, a member of the Modern Folk Quartet, contributed clarinet to "Bes' Friends" and took the pictures which adorned the LP's sleeve.Template:Sfn The album was released in NovemberTemplate:Nbsp1966,Template:Sfn and it reached number 14 on the Billboard LPs chart.<ref name="Billboard chart history" /> Preorders for the album were diminished after a disappointing reaction accompanied the August release of the What's Up, Tiger Lily? soundtrack album.<ref>Template:Harvnb: (diminished preorders, disappointing reaction); Template:Harvnb: (AugustTemplate:Nbsp1966).</ref>
In addition to the already released "Summer in the City", the sessions for Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful produced the song "Rain on the Roof".Template:Sfn The possibility of releasing the song as a single generated disagreement among the members of the Spoonful.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn "Summer in the City" featured a harder sound than their previous output,Template:Sfn<ref name="AllMusic SitC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and it had attracted new fans to the group after it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in August.Template:Sfn<ref name="Billboard chart history"/> Both Boone and Butler worried that returning to a softer sound with "Rain on the Roof" would potentially alienate the band's new fans,Template:Sfn<ref name="Summer in the City UNCUT" /> 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.Template:Sfn Issued as a single in October,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn "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.<ref name="Billboard chart history"/> The song also continued the band's success in Europe, charting in several European countries.Template:Sfn
Another song from Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, the country-tinged "Nashville Cats", was issued as a single in December.Template:Sfn It reached number eight on the Hot 100, but despite the band's hopes, it failed to crossover into the country market.Template:Sfn The single's B-side, "Full Measure", a Boone-Sebastian collaboration, received strong airplay in California and the Southwestern United States, helping it reach number 87 on the Hot 100 chart.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In KRLA Beat, the local publication of the Southern Californian radio station KRLA, "Full Measure" reached as high as number seven on the station's chart.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In 1966, the Spoonful had five Top Ten singles, making it the band's most successful year to date.Template:Sfn The end-of-year issue for Billboard magazine ranked the Spoonful as the third best performing singles artist of the year, after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.Template:Sfn<ref name="1966 Top Artists">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the magazine's list of the top 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.<ref name="1966 Top Records">Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Refn Besides achieving commercial success, the Spoonful in 1966 were among the American bands regarded most highly by critics;<ref name="O'Grady" /> a piece in TIME magazine that October placed the band alongside the Mamas and the Papas and Simon & Garfunkel as one of the three best new groups in the country, and Ralph J. Gleason told Look 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".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
1967–1968: Diminished successEdit
You're a Big Boy Now soundtrack; Yanovsky and Jacobsen firedEdit
In mid-OctoberTemplate:Nbsp1966, the Spoonful recorded a soundtrack album for the 1966 film You're a Big Boy Now. The film served as the master's thesis of the director Francis Ford Coppola, who was then attending UCLA Film School.Template:Sfn After meeting with Coppola in September to discuss the project,Template:Sfn Sebastian wrote the songs on his own before presenting them to the musician Artie Schroeck, who arranged the compositions for an orchestra.Template:Sfn After Butler struggled with the drum part, the session musician Bill LaVorgna played in his place.Template:Sfn David "Fathead" Newman played saxophone during the sessions and Clark Terry played flügelhorn.Template:Sfn
During the editing of You're a Big Boy Now, Coppola used the Mamas & the Papas' 1966 single "Monday, Monday" as temp music for one sequence in the film, for which Sebastian wrote "Darling Be Home Soon".Template:Sfn Sebastian's composition flips a genre convention by describing a male subject waiting for a female to return home.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
The lack of collaboration on You're a Big Boy Now led to consternation from Sebastian's bandmates, especially Yanovsky, whose playing style often relied on improvisation.Template:Sfn Yanovsky especially disliked the soundtrack album's lead single, "Darling Be Home Soon", which was issued in earlyTemplate:Nbsp1967.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn When the Spoonful appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in January to promote the release, Yanovsky mugged for the camera, miming the lyrics and bouncing up-and-down with a rubber-toad figurine attached to his guitar.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.Template:Sfn "Darling Be Home Soon" peaked at number fifteen,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn a major disappointment compared to the band's earlier releases and their first single which failed to reach the Top Ten.Template:Sfn Also disappointing was the release of the You're a Big Boy Now soundtrack, which peaked at number 160 on the Billboard Top LPs chart in MayTemplate:Nbsp1967.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn which reached number three and became the band's best selling album.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />Template:Sfn
From lateTemplate:Nbsp1966 into earlyTemplate:Nbsp1967, Sebastian's bandmates felt he was exerting excessive control over the band's direction.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Boone recalled that the relationship between Sebastian and Yanovsky became especially stilted, since Yanovsky often rebelled rather than articulate his concerns directly.Template:Sfn Further agitating the situation, when Koppelman and Rubin renegotiated the band's distribution deal between Kama Sutra and MGM in lateTemplate:Nbsp1966, 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn
In MayTemplate:Nbsp1967, 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.Template:Sfn Butler, who had never gotten along with YanovskyTemplate:Sfn and was increasingly the target of Yanovsky's insults, agreed with Sebastian.Template:Sfn In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired.Template:Sfn He agreed to continue performing the rest of the group's scheduled dates,Template:Sfn but rumors circulated throughout June that the band was breaking up.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He last performed with the Spoonful on Template:Nowrap, at the Forest Hills Music Festival in Queens, New York.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="FHMF">Template:Cite news</ref>
Yester hired, Everything PlayingEdit
The Spoonful hired Jerry Yester to replace Yanovsky on lead guitar duties. Following the MayTemplate:Nbsp1967 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".Template:Sfn Since mid-1966, when Yester's band the Modern Folk Quartet disbanded,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> he had been working as a session musician and producer in Los Angeles.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn In early JuneTemplate:Nbsp1967, he rehearsed with the Spoonful at Sebastian's home in East Quogue, New York, and he debuted with the band on JuneTemplate:Nbsp30 at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.Template:Sfn
The Spoonful reconvened in AugustTemplate:Nbsp1967 to begin sessions for their next album, Everything Playing. In need of a producer after Jacobsen's firing, the band initially hoped to work with Roy Halee, who had worked as engineer on the band's earlier recordings, but his continued employment with Columbia Records prevented the collaboration. Koppelman-Rubin instead suggested Joe Wissert, a Philadelphia-based producer who had recently worked with the 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 first 16-track recorder.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
Like other folk-rock acts, the Spoonful struggled to modify their musical approach as the new genre of psychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967.Template:Sfn The sessions for Everything Today yielded three singles, all three of which continued the band's downward commercial performance when they failed to place in the Top Ten.Template:Sfn "Six O'Clock", which had been recorded at Columbia before Jacobsen and Yanovsky were fired, was released in AprilTemplate:Nbsp1967 and peaked at number 18.Template:Sfn For the album's next single, "She Is Still a Mystery", Yester arranged an orchestral accompaniment which included strings and woodwinds played by members of the New York Philharmonic, along with horns from Ray Charles' touring band.Template:Sfn Released in October,Template:Sfn the single reached number 27.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />Template:Sfn Everything Playing was issued in DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1967,Template:Sfn but received negative reviews from critics and peaked at number 118 in the U.S. after spending seven weeks on the album chart.Template:Sfn The album track "Younger Generation" was originally intended for release as a single – a trade ad in Billboard promised it would be "the most talked-about track of 1968" – but its release never followed.Template:Sfn Instead, "Money" was issued as a single in JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp1968,Template:Sfn and it peaked at number 48.Template:Sfn
Sebastian departs, Revelation: Revolution '69Edit
After the major commercial disappointments of Everything Playing and "Money" in earlyTemplate:Nbsp1968, Sebastian advised his bandmates that, following the Spoonful's next three months of scheduled tour dates, he planned to leave the group.Template:Sfn The Los Angeles Times reported in April that he intended to leave by June.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The band last publicly performed on JuneTemplate:Nbsp1, 1968, at Parker Field in Richmond, Virginia.Template:Sfn<ref name=Richmond />Template:Refn The following day, Sebastian told reporters that the group had probably played their last show together,<ref name=Richmond /> and some newspapers reported in July that the band had broken up.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By September, Sebastian announced his intention to pursue a solo career.<ref name=Johnson>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Sebastian later summed up the band's career as "two glorious years and a tedious one".Template:Sfn
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 lateTemplate:Nbsp1968, Revelation: Revolution '69 featured neither Boone nor Yester, but is credited to "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler".Template:Sfn The album did not chart,<ref name="Billboard chart history" /> and it is generally omitted from lists of the Spoonful's discography.Template:Sfn The album's first single, the John Stewart-penned "Never Going Back", was recorded in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound Recorders before Sebastian departed the group, but he did not play on the recording. It was issued in JulyTemplate:Nbsp1968 and reached number 73.Template:Sfn
1968–present: After the breakupEdit
John SebastianEdit
The Spoonful were one of several bands to have broken up in 1968.Template:Sfn In an article that December, Penny Valentine of Disc and Music Echo counted the band's breakup and the formation of the folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash as reflecting a consolidation in the industry, "[tying] up all the loose strings of musical talent in the pop world".Template:Sfn Sebastian was offered a position in Crosby, Stills & Nash, but he declined,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn expressing his desire in a contemporary interview to focus on his solo career rather than joining a new group.Template:Sfn
Following the Spoonful's dissolution, Sebastian was the only former member whose music career initially appeared promising.Template:Sfn Splitting time between New York City and Los Angeles, his first major project after leaving the band was composing the lyrics and music for the Broadway show Jimmy Shine,Template:Sfn which ran from DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1968 to AprilTemplate:Nbsp1969.Template:Sfn In lateTemplate:Nbsp1968, he signed with Warner Records and he recorded a solo album, John B. Sebastian, which included contributions from Crosby, Stills & Nash.Template:Sfn Due to a contract dispute, release of the album was delayed by over a year until JanuaryTemplate:Nbsp1970.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Refn It reached number 20 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart.Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in AugustTemplate:Nbsp1969, in which he played the Spoonful's songs "Darling Be Home Soon" and "Younger Generation".Template:Sfn Despite his initial successes, Sebastian struggled as a songwriter for most of the 1970s.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn His 1974 album Tarzana Kid did not chart, but it was produced by Erik Jacobsen, marking the first time the two collaborated since their falling out years earlier.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn After his first five singles were commercial failures, Sebastian's label planned to drop him;Template:Sfn he achieved a number one hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back", the theme song for the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter, but he was unable to translate it into continued success.Template:Sfn
Zal YanovskyEdit
After leaving the Spoonful, Yanovsky signed as a solo act with Buddha Records, and he continued to be managed by Cavallo.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In SeptemberTemplate:Nbsp1967, Buddha issued his debut single, "As Long As You're Here",<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> which reached number 101 on BillboardTemplate:'s Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart the following month.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In lateTemplate:Nbsp1967, he began recording his first solo album, Alive and Well in Argentina, which was released in AprilTemplate:Nbsp1968.Template:Sfn The album received little critical or commercial attention,<ref name="Canadian Encyclopedia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but it spawned a partnership between Yanovsky and his replacement in the Spoonful, Jerry Yester, who produced the album.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The two formed "Hair Shirt Productions", which produced recordings in Los Angeles for Pat Boone, Tim Buckley and the Fifth Avenue Band.Template:Sfn
Yanovsky played in Kris Kristofferson's band on a 1970 European tour,<ref name="Canadian Encyclopedia" /> including a performance at that year's Isle of Wight Festival.Template:Sfn Sebastian was performing at the festival as a solo act, and Yanovsky joined him on stage during the former's set for several songs.Template:Sfn Yanovsky subsequently exited the music business and moved back to Canada, opening the restaurant Chez Piggy in 1979 with his wife in Kingston, Ontario.<ref name="Canadian Encyclopedia" />
Steve Boone, Joe Butler and reunionsEdit
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.Template:Sfn Butler pivoted to Broadway acting,Template:Sfn and he performed in the rock musical Hair.Template:Sfn He also worked as a sound editor in Hollywood,Template:Sfn but by later in the 1970s he was no longer active in music and instead drove a taxi cab.Template:Sfn
Sebastian resisted subsequent efforts to reform the Spoonful,Template:Sfn and the original members of the band only reunited twice.Template:Sfn In lateTemplate:Nbsp1979, at the invitation of the musician Paul Simon, the band appeared in his 1980 film One-Trick Pony in a concert sequence which featured several 1960s acts.Template:Sfn The band did not see each other again until MarchTemplate:Nbsp2000, when the four original members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.Template:Sfn Yanovsky died of a heart attack two years later.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Butler, Boone and Yester began touring under the name the Spoonful in 1991,Template:Sfn a venture opposed by both Sebastian and Yanovsky.Template:Sfn Augmented by a group of touring musicians,Template:Sfn the group released a live album, Live at the Hotel Seville, in 1999.<ref name="AllMusic bio" /> Sebastian has since reunited with Boone and Butler once, joining them onstage in 2020 during a benefit concert.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Musical style and developmentEdit
SongwritingEdit
Led by their primary songwriter John Sebastian, the Spoonful took their earliest influences from blues and jug band music.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He and Yanovsky intended to be an "electric jug band",Template:Sfn and Yanovsky summarized their style as "jug band music without the jugs".<ref name="Altham 1966" /> The band's music further blended influences from folk, blues, country and rock music,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn updating traditional American music into a modern popular music format.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref> 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".Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Sebastian's songwriting drew from American pop, rock and folk,Template:Sfn and he named Motown music and the Holland–Dozier–Holland songwriting team as among his biggest influences.<ref name=Documentary>Template:Cite AV media</ref>Template:Refn He also named his friend and fellow folk musician Fred 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".Template:Sfn The Spoonful's debut album featured covers of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Fred Neil, the folk group the Holy Modal Rounders, the 1920s blues musician Henry Thomas and the girl group the Ronettes.Template:Sfn
The Spoonful's sound was influential on contemporary musical acts,Template:Sfn including bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, Buffalo Springfield and the Grateful Dead.<ref>Template:Harvnb, Template:Harvnb: (Beatles); Template:Harvnb (Beach Boys); Template:Harvnb: (Kinks); Template:Harvnb: (Buffalo Springfield); Template:Harvnb: (Grateful Dead).</ref>Template:Refn The Spoonful were one of the first acts to be described as folk rock, a term coined in JuneTemplate:Nbsp1965Template:Sfn to describe music which joined elements of rock-and-roll and folk-music.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Refn They were among the main instigators of the folk-rock movement in New York City and became the most successful folk-rock band from the U.S. East Coast.<ref>Template:Harvnb: "[The Lovin' Spoonful were] one of the prime movers in the New York folk-rock movement of the mid-'60sTemplate:Nbsp..."; Template:Harvnb: "The Lovin' Spoonful was the most successful folk-rock band from the East Coast."</ref> In contrast to the protest songs for which folk had been known, the Spoonful focused on optimistic, feel-good music.Template:Sfn The band often termed their sound "good-time music",Template:Sfn a phrase which originally described jug band music.<ref name=Documentary /> Sebastian hoped it could serve as an alternative to "folk rock" – a term he thought "just didn't say it all"<ref name=Documentary /> – 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".Template:Sfn Among contemporary critics in 1966, Ralph J. Gleason wrote that the Spoonful seemed to be neither rock 'n' roll nor folk rock,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while Robert 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".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
InstrumentationEdit
The Spoonful played on their own recordings and were against the use of studio musicians.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref> The band sought to avoid being typecast and aimed to sound different with each single,Template:Sfn<ref name="KRLA 1/15/66">Template:Cite magazine</ref> an approach they developed after seeing other groups fail when repeating the sound of an earlier hit.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> As part of their efforts, the group incorporated a variety of instruments on their recordings,Template:Sfn including bass marimba, chimes, Irish harp and Hohner Tubon, as well as resonator, pedal steel and open-tuned twelve-string guitars.<ref>Template:Harvnb: (bass marimba, resonator, pedal steel guitar, open-tuned 12-string); Template:Harvnb: (chimes); Template:Harvnb: (Irish harp, Tubon).</ref> The band's music prominently featured the autoharp,Template:Sfn a stringed instrument with buttons which, when depressed, produce preset combinations of chords, leaving it typically used as a rhythm instrument.Template:Sfn The instrument was mostly associated with folk music,<ref name="AllMusic DYBiM song">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but few folk-rock or rock acts had employed it.Template:Sfn Sebastian amplified his autoharp by affixing a ukulele contact microphone onto the back of it and then plugging it into an amplifier,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn a technique he developed in the rehearsal room before the band's first recording session.<ref name="Shiner Sebastian">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> To generate more bottom end, the band added piano underneath,<ref name="Shiner Sebastian" /> which Sebastian later said "create[d] the effect of a huge autoharp".<ref name="Mix" />
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 guitarists Duane Eddy and Link Wray.Template:Sfn 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 pianist Floyd Cramer and the blues guitarist Elmore James simultaneously.<ref name="Shiner Sebastian" />Template:Refn 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".<ref name="Shiner Sebastian" /> Yanovsky's playing relied heavily on improvisation,Template:Sfn and he often drew from country music, leading the commentator Peter Doggett to describe him as "the missing link between fifties rockabilly and sixties folk-rock".Template:Sfn
Sebastian played a 1957 sunburst Gibson Les Paul electric guitar in live performances and on the band's recordings,<ref>Template:Harvnb: "The serial number on the back of the instrument's headstock is not in the correct original typeface and style, but reads 7-8789 which would date the guitar's manufacture to lateTemplate:Nbsp1957. Gibson's records indicate that a gold-finished Les Paul with this number was shipped by the company on December 19th 1957.Template:Nbsp... [The guitar] had previously been owned by The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian."</ref>Template:Sfn and he used a Heritage Gibson as his main acoustic guitar.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Yanovsky's main guitar was a Guild Thunderbird,Template:Sfn<ref name="Hit Parader 11/67">Template:Cite magazine</ref> which he bought from Manny's Music in Midtown Manhattan around 1964.Template:Sfn Soon after recording "Do You Believe in Magic" in JuneTemplate:Nbsp1965, he replaced the guitar's original Guild pickups with humbuckers, which he thought "weren't quite as warm the originals, but they aged nicely".<ref>Template:Harvnb: (after recording "Magic", replaced pickups; "weren't quiteTemplate:Nbsp..."); Template:Harvnb: (JuneTemplate:Nbsp1965).</ref> He also sometimes played a Fender Esquire.<ref name="Hit Parader 11/67" /> He favored a Fender Super Reverb as his standard amplifier, which he later said managed to add extra bottom end while also being loud,Template:Sfn and which he thought sounded similar to a pedal-steel guitar.<ref name="Mix" />
ImageEdit
The Spoonful's image was influential on their contemporaries.Template:Sfn The band's stage act was both eccentric and extroverted,Template:Sfn 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".Template:Sfn The author Bob Stanley later described the band's look as a clash between that of the Beatniks and the Beatles,Template:Sfn and the American men's fashion magazine Esquire produced a fashion spread of the band in its JuneTemplate:Nbsp1966 issue, detailing how the group sported "mod gear", but from New York's Seventh Avenue rather than London's Carnaby Street.Template:Sfn
The group wore clothes with stripes and spots,Template:Sfn stripes having been popularized by Brian Jones.<ref name="Guitar World" /> Sebastian often wore denimTemplate:Sfn and granny glasses,Template:Sfn the latter of which he adopted from Fritz Richmond,Template:Sfn and which John Lennon subsequently adopted in SeptemberTemplate:Nbsp1966.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn After the band met the fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn in DecemberTemplate:Nbsp1965 on the Sunset Strip, Franklyn designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky.Template:Sfn Yanovsky is generally recognized as the first rock musician to wear cowboy hats and fringed buckskin jackets,<ref name="Guitar World">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and his wardrobe also consisted of fur coats,Template:Sfn mod ties, corduroy jackets, vests and boutonnières.<ref name="Guitar World" />
MembersEdit
Current membersTemplate:Refn
- Steve Boone – bass guitar, keyboards Template:Small<ref name=PennLIVE />
Past members
- John Sebastian – vocals, guitar, harmonica, autoharp, keyboards Template:Small
- Zal Yanovsky – vocals, guitar Template:Small
- Jan Carl – drums Template:Small
- Joe Butler – vocals, drums Template:Small<ref name="27East" /><ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref><ref name=PennLIVE>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Jerry Yester – guitar Template:Small
Membership timelineEdit
<timeline> ImageSize = width:790 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:90 bottom:60 top:20 right:15 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/12/1964 till:31/12/1968 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1965 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:2 start:1965
Colors =
id:v value:red legend:Vocals id:g value:green legend:Guitar id:ah value:limegreen legend:Harmonica,_autoharp,_keyboards id:b value:blue legend:Bass_guitar,_keyboards id:dr value:orange legend:Drums id:album value:black legend:Album id:bar value:gray(0.95)
BackgroundColors = bars:bar
BarData =
bar:John1 text:John Sebastian bar:Zal text:Zal Yanovsky bar:Jerry text:Jerry Yester bar:Steve text:Steve Boone bar:Jan text:Jan Carl bar:Joe text:Joe Butler
PlotData =
width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,–4) bar:John1 from:01/12/1964 till:20/06/1968 color:g bar:John1 from:01/12/1964 till:20/06/1968 color:ah width:7 bar:John1 from:01/12/1964 till:20/06/1968 color:v width:3
bar:Zal from:01/12/1964 till:24/06/1967 color:g bar:Zal from:01/12/1964 till:24/06/1967 color:v width:3
bar:Steve from:15/12/1964 till:20/06/1968 color:b
bar:Jan from:15/12/1964 till:01/02/1965 color:dr
bar:Joe from:01/03/1965 till:07/10/1968 color:dr bar:Joe from:01/03/1965 till:07/10/1968 color:v width:3
bar:Jerry from:30/06/1967 till:20/06/1968 color:g
LineData =
layer:back color:album at:23/10/1965 at:15/03/1966 at:15/08/1966 at:24/11/1966 at:15/03/1967 at:06/12/1967 at:07/10/1968
</timeline>
DiscographyEdit
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Studio albums
- Do You Believe in Magic (1965)
- Daydream (1966)
- Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful (1966)
- Everything Playing (1967)
- Revelation: Revolution '69 (1968)
Soundtrack albums
- What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
- You're a Big Boy Now (1967)
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
SourcesEdit
BooksEdit
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Liner notesEdit
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External linksEdit
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- The Lovin' Spoonful on the Internet Archive
Template:The Lovin' Spoonful Template:2000 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame