The first East Coast group to successfully challenge the Beatles was a zany bunch of local boys who produced astonishingly original hits, combining good-time rock ‘n’ roll, folk-rock and traditional blues, with hard-driving riffs, a mouth-harp and a
jug-band feel. Sounds kookie? – who’d have thought!
The Lovin’ Spoonful were four of the funniest guys who ever waltzed into our studios, and for the first time I was able to relate one-on-one with a “tie-dyed group.” Our common ground was that they were street-smart New Yorkers with good-natured humor.
Just a year earlier, in 1964, John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky were already veterans of the Greenwich Village folk scene, singing at The Café Wha’ with The Mugwumps with Cass Elliott and Denny Doherty, who later joined The Mamas & The Papas.
John and Zally could be spotted singin’ ‘n’ strummin’ in Washington Square Park, where they hooked up with “One of the few drummers in the Village,” Joe Butler (from Long Island), and rhythm guitarist, Steve Boone (from North Carolina), on bass.
With John Sebastian as principle songwriter, they rehearsed (famously, endlessly) in the old Albert Hotel in the Village, and with their first, “Do You Believe In Magic” 1965 to “Nashville Cats” in 1967, The Lovin’ Spoonful appeared on our show multiple times, introducing each of their seven singles, all of which scored in the Top Ten on the national charts, a phenomenal achievement in the midst of Beatlemania.
To me they were simply my all-time favorites, four-wild-and-crazy guys! If you want to see the proof of their power and appeal, rent the wacky, 1966 Woody Allen film, What’s Up, Tiger Lilly? and check out The Lovin’ Spoonful on stage, in full force, preserved on celluloid as young and spunky as we want to remember them. 
-- CC
-- CC
New York's very own Boy-Band
The Lovin' Spoonful
John
Joe
Steve
John Sebastian, as singer, songwriter and musician, brought the Lovin’ Spoonful a string of Top Ten hits in 1965-1967 - their first seven singles topped the charts - an unimaginable feat at the height of Beatlemania. Using roots music as their inspiration, John composed and sang a series of original songs that were completely modern and yet still contained the essence of America’s musical history.
After leaving the Spoonful in 1968, John performed at festivals like Woodstock and the Isle of Wight, composed music for TV and films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s You’re A Big Boy Now and Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lily, and in 1976 topped the charts with Welcome Back, the title track commissioned for the hit TV show Welcome Back Kotter. Sebastian also toured and recorded during the ’70s and ’80s, and inspired countless aspiring artists with his music and instructional books on guitar and harmonica, and wrote a children’s book in 1993, JB’s Harmonica.
'Spoonful' were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
Zal Yanovsky (beared) died in 2002. John performs solo; Steve Boone and Joe Butler still tour under the group name, with Jerry Yester and two new members.
Official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Biography
"The good-time sounds of the Lovin’ Spoonful made the quartet a fixture during the golden age of Top Forty radio. Over a period of two years in the mid-Sixties, the New York-based group charted a string of ten Top Forty hits, seven of which placed inside the Top Ten at a time when the competition included Motown, the Beatles and countless British Invasion bands. The Lovin’ Spoonful’s tuneful, poppy singles have stood the test of time and at least one of them, “Do You Believe in Magic,” remains a defining rock and roll anthem.
The four original members--singer/guitarist John Sebastian, guitarist Zal Yanovsky, bassist Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler--came together in Greenwich Village. The folk-music scene was in full swing, but the electrified sounds of the Beatles and the other pop bands of the day had also caught their attention. Retaining their folkie roots while exploring new directions, the Lovin’ Spoonful adapted folk-style fingerpicking to electric instruments. Their folk-rock hybrid was particularly evident in the unusual combination of autoharp and electric guitar on “Do You Believe in Magic.” What really set the Lovin’ Spoonful apart from the mid-Sixties pack of one-hit wonders was their daring eclecticism. No two singles were written in the same style. Between 1965 and 1968, they tackled jug-band music ("Good Time Music"), ragtime ("Daydream"), country ("Nashville Cats"), folk-pop ("You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice"), hard rock ("Summer in the City") and pop ("She Is Still a Mystery").
The consequences of a 1966 arrest of two band members for marijuana possession led to the band’s gradual dissolution, with Yanovsky leaving in 1967. [Zal headed to Kingston, Ontario, Canada with his wife Rose, and opened a restaurant called Chez Piggy.*
Zak was replaced by Jerry Yester, formerly of the Modern Folk Quartet]. Sebastian, the group’s founder and leader, quit in 1968. The group’s final album featured only Joe Butler from the original group. John Sebastian launched a successful solo career that found him giving one of the more memorable performances at Woodstock in August 1969. Many years later, in 1980, the Lovin’ Spoonful came together one more time to perform a cameo in Paul Simon’s film One-Trick Pony.
David Grisman and John reunited at a benefit concert in California, which inspired an album of acoustic duets,
"Satisfied"
Lovin' Spoonful Official Website
Lovin' Spoonful's first music video from 1965. YouTube "Do You Believe In Magic"
John Sebastian's Official Website
Book: John Sebastian Teaches Blues Harmonica for Beginners
Hal Leonard Publisher
The band's name Lovin' Spoonful was inspired by the lyrics in a song by Mississippi John Hurt called the "Coffee Blues" -- their sound "a combination of John Hurt and Chuck Berry, with roots in a folk group, The Mugwumps"
Trivia: The band was originally selected to perform on the television show that became The Monkees. Joe Butler replaced Jim Rado in the Broadway rock musical Hair, in which the cast appeared naked. Center photo: Backatage with Sonny Bono.
This page was last updated: December 6, 2008
* Zal Yanovsky died in 2002 and wife Rose died two years later, leaving their restaurant to their daughter Zoe. In 2004, Zoe started a fundraising project in honor of her parents, . organizing two free breakfasts at the restaurant each December. Patrons enjoy an elaborate feast and are asked to leave a donation in return. The event has become a huge hit and $130,000 has been raised so far, more than double the goal Ms. Yanovsky set. The money supports programs that offer meals to children who go to school hungry.
Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran (US Folkrock, 1969)
A cult favorite: Judy Henske, the talented folk singer and Jerry Yester, a former member of The Magic Ride and Modern Folk Quartet, recorded and released this album in 1969.
"Farewell Aldebaran" is a stylistic mix; the duo pushes militant rock songs like “Snowblind” up against carnival tunes, “Horses on a Stick” and melodramatic surrealism, “St Nicholas Hall," and the arrangements gesture toward folk, Californian pop, hillbilly music and acid rock without settling into a set framework. The whole thing is faintly alien in tone and psychedelic in the truest sense - opulent and temporally dislocating, sumptuous at times and positively stuffed at others.The arrangements contain grand sweeps of strings and arcs of pungent melody, with Henske’s voice moving from dulcet to amorous to acidic. When Yester joins her at the microphone, they twang nasally through “Raider.” A very good album, possibly Judy's best. Top-drawer stuff.
I've loved this album for 25 years; it never gets old.
