The Lovin' Spoonful

John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky met on February 9, 1964, at the home of fellow musician Cass Elliott.[2] That night, Elliott held a party at her home to watch the English rock band the Beatles make their American television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.[3] The three musicians were all active in the folk music scene in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City, and Elliott encouraged Sebastian and Yanovsky to play with one another.[4] Sebastian, the son of the classical harmonica player John Sebastian Sr., grew up in a Village apartment which neighbored Washington Square Park,[5] where, beginning when he was young, he often went to play music.[5][6] Sebastian played in rock bands as a teenager at his prep school in New Jersey,[7] and he became multi-instrumentalist, being proficient on guitar, harmonica, piano and the autoharp.[6] Beginning in the early 1960s, he worked as a studio musician.[8]

Yanovsky was formerly a member of the Canadian folk group the Halifax Three, and after the group broke up in June 1964,[9] he was recruited by Elliott to join her group, the Mugwumps.[10] In 1964, 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.[11] 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."[12] 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.[12] After the Mugwumps dissolved in late 1964, Sebastian and Yanovsky began planning to form their own group,[11][13] which they envisioned as an electric jug band.[12][nb 1] 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."[12] 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.[14]

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,[15] and the two soon bonded over their shared taste in eclectic music and smoking marijuana.[15][16] Like Sebastian, Jacobsen had been similarly 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 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."[15] As part of his effort to switch focus towards production, Jacobsen recorded demos for musicians in the Village,[17] including Sebastian's compositions "Warm Baby" and "Rooty-Toot".[18][nb 2]

From 1962 to 1964, Steve Boone played bass guitar in several Long Island rock bands with the drummer Joe Butler,[20] including the Kingsmen, led by Boone's brother, Skip.[21] Boone quit the band in mid-1964 to spend time visiting Europe, while 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.[22] In December 1964,[20] at the insistence of Butler, Boone went to the Village Music Hall, a small music club on West Third Street in Greenwich Village.[23] There, Boone met Sebastian and Yanovsky,[24] and though he had no background in folk music,[25] he soon bonded with the two over their shared musical influences of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Motown, the Beatles and other British Invasion acts.[24] 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.[26] 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.[27] That week, Boone attended Sebastian's performance at a Greenwich Village club.[28] Sebastian's show, made up of a quickly assembled group of Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Buzzy Linhart and Felix Pappalardi, greatly impressed Boone,[28][29] who later remembered it as "one of the most significant nights in my musical life."[29] He also recalled: "I was stunned. I had never heard such power in a folk group before."[29] The performance motivated Boone to enter the Greenwich Village folk scene and join Sebastian and Yanovsky's group.[29]

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.[30] Buchner, who went by the stagename Jan Carl,[31] 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 December 1964 and January 1965, and they also played at local bars in Bridgehampton at night.[32]

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,[33] playing harmonica on progressive folk records for acts such as Fred Neil, Jesse Colin Young and Judy Collins.[8][nb 3] In mid-January 1965, Bob Dylan called Sebastian and asked for him to play bass guitar on his newest album, Bringing It All Back Home. Boone was one of the few people Sebastian knew with a car and driver's license, and he offered to drive Sebastian to the session. Sebastian was not a trained bass player and, after struggling to play the part, he suggested to Dylan that Boone play instead.[34][35] Later Dylan biographers dispute whether any of Boone's contributions ended up on the final album.[36][nb 4]

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. Fritz Richmond, the washtub bass player for Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, suggested to Sebastian the name The Lovin' Spoonful,[40] a reference to the lyrics of the song "Coffee Blues" by the country blues musician Mississippi John Hurt,[41] with whom Sebastian had previously worked.[29] Sebastian and Yanovsky were enthusiastic about the suggestion and adopted it as the band's name.[42]

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 Lovin' Spoonful at the venue.[43] The Night Owl was formerly an after-hours bowling alley at West Third and MacDougal Streets, which Marra had recently converted into a 125-person capacity coffeehouse and restaurant for folk music acts.[44] The band made their first live performances in late January 1965 at the Night Owl, holding a two-week residency.[12] 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").[45][nb 5] The band received a mixed reception, due in part to their loud playing style in the small venue.[45] Marra was unimpressed and returned to booking folk acts.[46] 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.[45]

The Lovin' Spoonful rehearsed for weeks in early 1965 in the basement of Greenwich Village's Hotel Albert (pictured 2023).

Having fired Carl, the Lovin' Spoonful could no longer play at the Bull's Head and were in need of a new rehearsal space.[49] The band had little money and had been living with Elliott in her Village apartment at the Hotel Albert.[50] 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.[51] 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.[52] Butler, who still played drums for the Sellouts, auditioned for the Lovin' 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.[29][53]

While waiting to be signed to a record label, the Lovin' Spoonful played at night clubs on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, including Cafe Wha? and Café Bizarre.[54] The band held a brief residency at Café Bizarre,[55] playing several sets a night for six days a week,[46] leading Sebastian to later reflect, "We learned more at that crappy little club than almost any other gig."[56] Marra had been especially critical of the band's earlier performances at the Night Owl, but he was impressed by the band's now professional approach,[55] and he offered in May for the band to return to performing at the Night Owl.[56] The Lovin' 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,[56][57] the latter of which Sebastian sometimes filled in for on drums.[58] The Night Owl's triple-bill was immediately successful,[56] 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.[59] 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,[56] and he printed a large color photo of the Lovin' Spoonful and placed it in the club's window, which helped elevate the band's local popularity.[55]

At the suggestion of Richmond, the Lovin' Spoonful played in June 1965 at Club 47, a folk music club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[60] The band were hesitant to perform at a club known strictly for folk music, but Richmond encouraged the group by pointing to Bob Dylan's recent transition to electrified rock,[60] first heard three months earlier with the release of "Subterranean Homesick Blues",[61] and the newfound popularity of the Byrds,[60] whose folk rock cover of Dylan's song "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number one in North America that month.[62][63] The term "folk rock" had been coined in the June 12 issue of the American music magazine Billboard by the journalist Eliot Siegel, who used the term principally to describe the music of the Byrds.[64] 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.[64][65] Boone later reflected that he and his bandmates had mixed feelings about the success of the Byrds, something they found encouraging but also disappointing because it meant that another group had beaten them in breaking the new folk-rock sound into the charts.[66]

The Lovin' Spoonful performed two sets at Club 47 and initially received a mixed reception, when many folk fans walked out of the first set due to the band's loud sound.[67] Sebastian recalled a moment from the first set:

[A 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.[68]

During the second set, the band received a warm response from the remaining crowd.[67] In retrospect, the author Richie Unterberger describes the Lovin' Spoonful's appearance as a "watershed" moment in the history of folk rock, and the rock journalist Paul Williams later said, "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."[68]

Early in the Lovin' Spoonful's May residency at the Night Owl,[56] Sebastian wrote a new song, "Do You Believe in Magic", which explored the transformative power of music.[69] 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.[70][71] The girl stood in contrast to the older beatnik crowd who typically attended folk performances,[71] and Sebastian recalled that "[she was] dancing like we danced – and not like the last generation danced".[56] 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."[71] Sebastian composed the song the following night,[70][71] and the band worked together at the Albert to finish its arrangement.[72]

The Lovin' Spoonful were enthusiastic about "Do You Believe in Magic" and hoped to record a demo of the song to shop to record companies.[72] In June,[73] 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.[72][73][nb 6] Jacobsen invited Yester to participate in the session, adding both piano and backing vocals,[74] and the session musician Gary Chester played tambourine.[75] 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.[74][76] After attending one of the Lovin' Spoonful's performances at the Night Owl,[77] the well-known producer Phil Spector listened to an acetate of "Do You Believe in Magic" and considered signing the band to his label, Philles Records.[78] Recollections differ as to who turned whom down,[nb 7] but subsequent authors suggest that in writing their own music and possessing a defined sound, the Lovin' Spoonful differed greatly from the acts with which Spector normally worked.[79][81]

Elektra Records approached the Lovin' Spoonful and offered to sign them.[80][82] 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 Lovin' 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,[77] and that they would not be clearly identified as a rock act if they signed at a folk-oriented label.[82] Cavallo approached Paul Rothchild and Jac Holzman of Elektra and said the band needed an advance of $10,000 before they could sign (equivalent to US$93,000 in 2022).[83][84] 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.[83] The band instead signed a side-deal with Elektra,[80] which had them record four songs, including Sebastian's song "Good Time Music".[82] 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.[82] The label later included the four songs on the compilation album What's Shakin', released the following year.[82][85]

The Lovin' Spoonful signed with Koppelman-Rubin, an entertainment company,[86] who signed the band to Kama Sutra Records in June 1965.[87] As part of the deal, MGM Records distributed the records, which Kama Sutra released for Koppelman-Rubin.[86] The arrangement's format of multiple middlemen left little in profits for the band.[83][86] Sebastian later said that not signing with Elektra was "the worst decision I ever made in my life".[88]

Kama Sutra saw no need to re-record Jacobsen's original demo of the Lovin' Spoonful performing "Do You Believe in Magic", and the label pressed copies to be the band's debut single.[86] The label issued it in the U.S. on July 20, 1965,[89][90] and it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 a month later,[73] remaining on the chart for thirteen weeks and peaking in October at number nine.[91]

The Lovin' Spoonful performing live, 1965

The release of "Do You Believe in Magic" in July 1965 propelled the Lovin' Spoonful to nationwide fame in the U.S. within weeks.[92] 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.[93] 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.[86] Beginning in August, the band toured the West Coast of the United States, appearing in San Francisco at Mother's Nightclub and at several clubs on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip, including Ciro's, the Whisky a Go Go[94] and The Crescendo (later renamed The Trip).[92][95] On August 7,[96] the band 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, including the Turtles and the Bobby Fuller Four.[97] On October 24, the Lovin' Spoonful headlined a dance party at Longshoreman's Union Hall in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood. Organized by the concert production collective Family Dog Productions, the show was one of the earliest in San Francisco's psychedelic music scene.[98] In attendance were members of the band the Grateful Dead,[99] an acoustic folk group who were inspired by the Lovin' Spoonful's performance to similarly "go electric" in their style.[100]

The Lovin' Spoonful in a promotional photograph taken by Henry Diltz, 1965

Amid their touring schedule, the Lovin' Spoonful recorded tracks for their debut album, Do You Believe in Magic.[101] 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 in Hollywood, Los Angeles. They also performed as uncredited studio musicians on Sonny & Cher's single "But You're Mine".[73] 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.[102] The album's five original compositions were all credited to Sebastian, including "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?",[73] which he based on a experience as a child at summer camp when he fell in love with twin sisters.[103] Pointing to the success of the Beatles and the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful's label encouraged the band to trade lead vocal responsibilities;[67] on Do You Believe in Magic, Sebastian sang 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").[73] Kama Sutra issued the album in November 1965.[73] It debuted on the Billboard Top LPs chart on December 4,[73] and it initially ran on the chart for 19 weeks, peaking in February 1966 at number 71.[104]

By late 1965, the Lovin' Spoonful made appearances on the most popular American television variety shows, including Where the Action Is, Shindig! and Hullabaloo.[105] Executives from NBC approached Cavallo to offer the band the opportunity to star in their own television series, The Monkees.[105][106] The group met with the executives Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider in Manhattan, where they 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.[107] Rafelson later said that the Lovin' Spoonful was the only existing group considered for the show before they began auditioning individual actors and musicians in September 1965.[108]

In November 1965, the Lovin' Spoonful embarked on a 19-day package-tour with the American girl group the Supremes.[109][110] The acts performed at colleges across the southern U.S.,[110] beginning in Lafayette, Louisiana, on November 10.[111][112] Both acts traveled by bus and partied together, along with members of the Supremes' backing band,[113] the Funk Brothers, billed as the Earl Van Dyke Orchestra.[114] The Lovin' Spoonful generally enjoyed the tour but found it physically exhausting. Sebastian additionally missed his girlfriend, Loretta "Lorey" Kaye.[115] Near the tour's end, in an effort to raise his own spirits, he composed "Daydream" while riding on the bus through North Carolina,[115] drawing inspiration from the Supremes' 1964 singles "Baby Love" and "Where Did Our Love Go".[113] A stop in Savannah, Georgia, additionally inspired the beginnings of "Jug Band Music",[115] which Boone later said "recalled pleasant visions of the tour" for him and his bandmates.[113]

The Lovin' Spoonful performing for The Big T.N.T. Show, November 1965

At the conclusion of their tour with the Supremes, the Lovin' Spoonful departed directly to Los Angeles, having been invited by Phil Spector to appear in the concert film The Big T.N.T. Show.[116] After filming on 29–30 November,[117] the band remained in Los Angeles to do several weeks of a residency at the Trip, a short-lived nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.[116] During their stay, the band befriended a local fashion designer, Jeannie Franklyn, who subsequently designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky.[118] They also struck up a friendship with David Crosby, the rhythm guitarist of the Byrds.[119] Crosby had spoken favorably of the Lovin' Spoonful in interviews as early as August, often promising reporters that they would be the next big group.[120][121] 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 Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas remained on close terms in the mid-1960s.[121][nb 8]

Amid their busy TV and live-date schedule, the Lovin' Spoonful recorded most of their second album Daydream in four days, from December 13 to 16, at Bell Sound Studios in New York City.[124] 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.[113] 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.[125] Kama Sutra issued the song as a non-album single on November 13,[126] and it peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1966.[91][113] 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".[127] While Do You Believe in Magic contained five original compositions, eleven out of twelve tracks on Daydream were original. Kama Sutra released the album in March 1966 and it reached number ten on the Billboard Top LPs chart, making it the band's best performing studio album.[113]

Kama Sutra Records' trade ad for the "Daydream" single fuelled press speculation that the band's name alluded to drug use.

Of the songs recorded for Daydream, Sebastian and Yanovksy 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.[128] The label instead issued "Daydream" in February 1966.[129] The song's release fuelled speculation from the press and public about a link between the band and drug use,[130][131] as the press had often incorrectly speculated that the Lovin' Spoonful alluded to the spoon used in injecting heroin.[132] The increased speculation was partly fuelled by the lyrics' use of the term "dream", which by 1966 was sometimes used to connote the experience of taking psychedelic drugs.[133] 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.[130]

"Daydream" remained on the Hot 100 for twelve weeks, peaking at number two for two weeks in mid-April.[91] The single was kept from the top spot on Billboard's chart by the Righteous Brothers' song "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration",[134] but it reached number one on Cash Box magazine's chart and also reached the top spot in Canada.[135][136] The song's success expanded the Lovin' Spoonful's popularity such that they were often able to headline their concerts rather than perform as a support act.[137] When the band toured with the Beach Boys in March and April 1966,[138] the two groups alternated top billing.[139][nb 9]

After having recorded two albums in the second-half of 1965, the Lovin' Spoonful were stretched for new material in March 1966 when they began sessions for a new single.[144] While searching for inspiration, Sebastian recalled a song composed and informally recorded by his fourteen-year-old brother, Mark.[144][145] 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.[146] 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.[147][nb 10] Issued in April,[152] it reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in June,[91] making it the band's fourth top ten single in America and their second top two record in a row.[153][nb 11] That same month, Do You Believe in Magic re-entered the Top LPs chart,[157] peaking in August at number 32 after spending 16 more weeks on the chart.[91]

Though the band had achieved quick success in North America, they remained generally unknown in the U.K.[158][159] None of their singles had charted in the country.[160] To expand the band's popularity to an international audience, their management organized several live and TV dates in England and Sweden in April.[158]

Only days before the Lovin' Spoonful were set to depart to Europe, they were approached to provide a soundtrack for What's Up, Tiger Lily?, the directorial debut of comedian Woody Allen,[161] who knew the band from his work at clubs in Greenwich Village.[162] The band recorded the soundtrack in two days, April 11 and 12, at National Recording Studios in New York City,[163][164] and they made a brief appearance in the film.[165] The film was a commercial disappointment and received mixed reviews.[166] Issued in August 1966,[167] the soundtrack album reached number 126 on the Billboard LPs chart.[91] Jacobsen later described it as a "goofball album" which served as a distraction and stalled the band's progress, adding, "Sebastian wrote great songs for it, but that's not what the people wanted".[166]

The Lovin' Spoonful in a 1966 promotional photograph

On April 12,[168] the Lovin' Spoonful arrived at Heathrow Airport to begin their ten-day tour of England and Sweden.[164][159] 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.[169] The band's time in England allowed them to interact with many of Britain's top musicians.[170] On April 18, they performed an invite-only show at the Marquee Club on Wardour Street, Soho, central London.[171][172] Several of Britain's top pop performers were in attendance,[171] including John Lennon, George Harrison,[173] Ray Davies,[174] Brian Jones, Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Eric Clapton.[171] The band were warmly received,[175][176] and Lennon and Harrison joined them afterwards into the morning at The May Fair Hotel in Piccadilly.[175] The next night, following their performance at the Blaises Club in Kensington, the band befriended Jones as well.[175]

After flying to Stockholm to perform on Swedish television, the Lovin' Spoonful proceeded to Ireland to attend the 21st birthday celebration of Browne on April 23.[177] Browne, who then regarded the Lovin' Spoonful as his favorite band,[178] delayed his party by seven weeks in order to coincide with the band's touring and recording schedule.[179] Browne flew the band to Ireland at his own expense to perform a private show,[180][181] paying them US$10,000 for the performance (equivalent to US$90,000 in 2022).[182][84] 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,[181] Chrissie Shrimpton, John Paul Getty Jr., Rupert Lycett Green[178] and Mike McCartney.[182] Butler recalled that the band's performance was likely substandard, since they were all drunk and high on marijuana.[182] Several guests also partook in the drug LSD,[183] including Butler,[178] and the Lovin' Spoonful stayed overnight.[184]

The Lovin' Spoonful returned to the U.S. in the last of week of April. The band's morale was high following the tour, particularly after they had been treated as equals by contemporary performers whom they held in high regard.[185] "Daydream" became a major international hit.[186] By mid-May, it had reached number two on all of the major British singles charts and number one on the Swedish Kvällstoppen chart.[160][187][188] Release of "Summer in the City" followed on July 4.[146][189] On August 13,[190] it overtook the Troggs' "Wild Thing"[191] to become the Lovin' Spoonful's first and only number one single in the U.S.[192] It held the position for three weeks, becoming what the author Jon Savage terms the "American song of the summer".[190] The song also topped Cash Box and Record World's charts,[193][194] and it was number one in Canada and number eight in the U.K.[195][160] 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 Lovin' 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.[196]

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.[197] Boone and Yanovsky spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the Lovin' Spoonful's road manager, Rich Chiaro.[198] 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 Green Theatre went forward as normal.[199]

At a meeting with San Francisco police and the District Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada.[200] 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.[201] 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.[202] Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,[203] directing an undercover operative to their source at local party.[204] 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.[205] Their drug source was in turn arrested and served a brief jail sentence.[203]

After the drug case went to court in December 1966, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's bust became more widespread.[206] Word made its way from the person arrested to Chester Anderson, a San Francisco-based journalist active in the counterculture, who distributed a leaflet regarding the situation to several underground newspapers, including the Berkeley Barb, the Los Angeles Free Press and the East Village Other.[207] In an attempt to quash the story, the Lovin' Spoonful's management offered to pay for the source's defense attorney[203] or to pay for his silence regarding the matter, options which he refused.[207] The underground press was especially critical of the band.[203] The Berkeley Barb first covered the story,[208] and the Los Angeles Free Press ran a one-page ad in July 1967 which related the story and urged readers to destroy their Lovin' Spoonful records.[209][210] By early 1967, the Lovin' Spoonful's shows on the West Coast were sometimes picketed by members of the 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.[211] The journalist Richard Goldstein reported that a record store in San Francisco hung a copy of the Lovin' Spoonful's latest album in its window next to a sign reading, "These men are informers", along with a section of the court transcript.[212] In the second issue of Rolling Stone magazine, issued in November 1967, the magazine's co-founder Ralph J. Gleason wrote a story on the bust and offered a defense of the band.[213][214] In his piece, Gleason termed the band's treatment "the biggest underground cancer in the rock scene".[214][215]

The public revelations of the drug bust added tensions between Sebastian and Butler against Yanovsky and Boone.[216] Boone later suggested that the boycott hurt the band's commercial performance,[217] 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".[218] In an article recounting the June 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, the author Michael Lydon suggested that the Lovin' Spoonful was unable to appear at the festival due to complications related to the drug bust.[219] Elliott recalled that while performing at the festival with her group, the Mamas & the Papas, some urged her to stop talking with Yanovsky, something she dismissed as "ridiculous", adding that he remained "one of [her] best friends".[214]

In July 1966,[220] the Lovin' Spoonful played to a crowd of 65,000 at that year's Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.[221] Bob Dylan had generated controversy at the previous year's festival when he performed a set of electric rock,[221][222] but at the 1966 festival, the Lovin' Spoonful and several other electric bands appeared, including Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and the Blues Project.[223] The Lovin' Spoonful were well received and received no pushback over their appearance.[221][222] 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".[222]

Around the time Daydream peaked on the Billboard chart in August,[91] the Lovin' Spoonful began recording their next album, later released as Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful.[191] When time allowed them a break from touring, they recorded the album across several sessions in New York City at Bell Sound and Columbia's 7th Avenue studio, with work also done in Los Angeles.[224] For the first time on one of the band's albums, it consisted of only original material.[225] Henry Diltz, a member of the Modern Folk Quartet, contributed clarinet to "Bes' Friends" and took the pictures which adorned the LP's sleeve.[224] The album was released in November 1966,[226] and it reached number 14 on the Billboard LPs chart.[91] Preorders for the album were diminished after a disappointing reaction accompanied the August release of the What's Up, Tiger Lily? soundtrack album.[227]

A trade ad for the Lovin' Spoonful's final single of 1966, "Nashville Cats"

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".[228] The possibility of releasing the song as a single generated disagreement among the members of the Lovin' Spoonful.[224][229] "Summer in the City" featured a harder sound than their previous output,[230][231] and it had attracted new fans to the group after it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in August.[232][91] Both Boone and Butler worried that returning to a softer sound with "Rain on the Roof" would potentially alienate the band's new fans,[232][144] 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.[232] Issued as a single in October,[233][234] "Rain on the Roof" remained on the Hot 100 for ten weeks and peaked at number ten, making it the Lovin' Spoonful's sixth consecutive single to reach the top ten.[91] The song also continued the band's success in Europe, charting in several European countries.[224]

Another song from Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, the country-tinged "Nashville Cats", was issued as a single in December.[167] It reached number eight on the Hot 100, but despite the band's hopes, it failed to crossover into the country market.[224] 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.[224][228] 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.[235]

In 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful had five Top Ten singles,[236] making it the band's most successful year to date.[237] The end-of-year issue for Billboard magazine ranked the Lovin' Spoonful as the third best performing singles artist of the year, after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.[238][239] 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.[240][nb 12]

In mid-October 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful recorded a soundtrack album for You're a Big Boy Now, a 1966 film which was the master's thesis of the director Francis Ford Coppola at UCLA Film School.[241] After meeting with Coppola in September to discuss the project,[242] Sebastian wrote the songs on his own before presenting them to the musician Artie Schroeck, who arranged the compositions for an orchestra.[241] Butler struggled with the drum part and session musician Bill LaVorgna played in his place.[243] David "Fathead" Newman played saxophone during the sessions and Clark Terry played flügelhorn.[243]

Erik Jacobsen (seated, center) producing the Lovin' Spoonful, undated

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".[244] Sebastian's composition flips a genre convention by describing a male subject waiting for a female to return home.[245][246] The Lovin' 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."[243] Boone instead suggests that Jacobsen deliberately erased Sebastian's vocal after finding it substandard, Boone recalling 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.[241]

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.[241] Yanvosky especially disliked the soundtrack album's lead single, "Darling Be Home Soon", which was issued in early 1967.[247][41] When the Lovin' 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.[247][203] The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.[247] "Darling Be Home Soon" peaked at number fifteen,[41][247] a major disappointment compared to the band's earlier releases and their first single which failed to reach the Top Ten.[247] 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 May 1967.[91][216] 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,[216] which reached number three and became the band's best selling album.[91][216]

From late 1966 into early 1967, tensions persisted within the Lovin' Spoonful, as Sebastian's bandmates felt he was exerting excessive control over the band's direction.[203][249] Boone recalled that the relationship between Sebastian and Yanovsky became especially stilted, since Yanovsky often rebeled rather than articulate his concerns directly.[250] 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.[251]

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 be fired or he was prepared to leave the band.[252] Butler, who had never gotten along with Yanovsky[253] and was increasingly the target of Yanovsky's insults, agreed with Sebastian.[254] In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired, but he agreed to continue performing the rest of their scheduled dates.[255] He last performed with the Lovin' Spoonful on June 24, 1967, at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York.[256][257]

Yanovsky's replacement Jerry Yester (right) with Steve Boone, 1967

The Lovin' 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".[258] Since mid-1966, when Yester's band the Modern Folk Quartet disbanded,[259] he had been working as a session musician in Los Angeles, contributing to the Monkees' 1967 album Headquarters, as well as having produced the Association's 1966 album Renaissance and Tim Buckley's 1967 album Goodbye and Hello. In early June 1967, Yester rehearsed with the Lovin' Spoonful at Sebastian's home in East Quogue, New York, and he debuted with the band on June 30 at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.[260]

The Lovin' 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 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 the Philadelphia-based producer Joe Wissert, 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.[261] 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.[262] Like other folk-rock acts, the band also struggled to transition their musical approach as the new genre of psychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967.[263]

The sessions for Everything Today yielded three singles, all three of which continued the Lovin' Spoonful's downward commercial performance when they failed to place in the Top Ten.[264] "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.[265] On 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 and horns from Ray Charles' touring band.[265] Following the single's release in October,[167] it reached number 27.[91][265] Everything Playing was issued in December 1967,[167] but received negative reviews from critics and peaked at number 118 in the U.S. after spending seven weeks on the album chart.[266] 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.[267] Instead, "Money" was issued as a single in January 1968,[268] and it peaked at number 48.[269]

After the major commercial disappointments of Everything Playing and "Money" in early 1968, Sebastian announced to his bandmates that following the Lovin' Spoonful's next three months of scheduled tour dates, he planned to leave the group.[270] He last publicly performed with the band on June 20, 1968, in Richmond, Virginia,[271] and his departure was made public in September.[272][273] Sebastian later summed up the band's career as "two glorious years and a tedious one".[274]

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 Lovin' 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".[275] The album did not chart,[91] and it is generally omitted from lists of the Lovin' Spoonful's discography.[276] 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 July 1968 and reached number 73.[277]

Following the dissolution of the Lovin' Spoonful, Sebastian was the only former member whose music career initially appeared promising.[278] 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,[279] which ran from December 1968 to April 1969.[280] In late 1968, he signed with Warner Records and he recorded a solo album, John B. Sebastian.[281] MGM claimed that they owned the rights to the album due to their contract with the Lovin' Spoonful,[282] and the label hoped to issue it under the band's name.[283] The ensuing contract dispute delayed the album's release by over a year, until January 1970.[282][281] Both labels issued copies of the LP with unique artwork,[282] but the album was still a commercial success, reaching number 20 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart.[281] Guest appearances on the album were made by future members of Crosby, Stills & Nash,[281] a folk rock supergroup in which Sebastian was offered a position, though he declined.[284][285]

Sebastian, Jacobsen and Yanovsky, c. 1970s

In the decade after he left the Lovin' Spoonful, Sebastian was active in the concert and festival circuit, and he typically played around 100 shows a year.[87] He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in August 1969, in which he played the Lovin' Spoonful songs "Darling Be Home Soon" and "Younger Generation".[286] Despite his initial successes, Sebastian struggled as songwriter in most the 1970s.[287][288] 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.[257][289] After his first five singles were commercial failures, Sebastian's label planned to drop him.[257] In 1976, he achieved a number one hit in 1976 with his song "Welcome Back", the theme song for the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter, but he was unable to translate it into continued success.[288]

After leaving the Lovin' Spoonful, Yanovksy signed as a solo act with Buddha Records, and he continued to be managed by Cavallo.[290] In September 1967, Buddha issued his debut single, "As Long As You're Here",[291][292] which reached number 101 on Billboard's Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart the following month.[293] In late 1967, he began recording his first solo album, Alive and Well in Argentina, which was released in April 1968.[294] The album received little critical or commercial attention,[295] but it spawned a partnership between Yanovksy and his Lovin' Spoonful replacement, Jerry Yester, who produced the album.[276][294] The two formed "Hair Shirt Productions", which produced recordings in Los Angeles for Pat Boone, Tim Buckley and the Fifth Avenue Band.[294] Yanovsky played in Kris Kristofferson's band on a 1970 European tour,[295] including a performance at that year's Isle of Wight Festival.[296] Sebastian was performing at the festival as a solo act, and Yanovsky joined him on stage during the former's set for a performance of the Lovin' Spoonful's song "Darling Be Home Soon".[296] Yanovksy subsequently exited the music business and moved back to Canada, opening the restaurant Chez Piggy in 1979 with his wife in Kingston, Ontario.[295]

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.[297] Butler pivoted to Broadway acting,[298] and he performed in the rock musical Hair.[296] He also worked as a sound editor in Hollywood,[298] but by later in the 1970s he was no longer active in music and instead drove a taxi cab.[299]

Sebastian resisted subsequent efforts to reform the Lovin' Spoonful,[274] and the original members of the band only reunited twice.[300] In late 1979, 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.[301] The band did not see each other again until March 2000, when the four original members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.[302] Yanovsky died of a heart attack two years later.[303] Butler, Boone and Yester began touring under the name the Lovin' Spoonful in 1991,[87] a venture opposed by both Sebastian and Yanovsky.[304] Augmented by a group of touring musicians,[305] the group released a live album, Live at the Hotel Seville, in 1999.[218]

The Lovin' Spoonful made prominent use of an autoharp, an instrument mostly associated with folk music.

The Lovin' Spoonful played on their own recordings and were against the use of studio musicians.[326][327] The band sought to avoid being typecast and aimed to sound different with each single.[232][328] As part of their efforts, the group incorporated a variety of instruments on their recordings,[314] including bass marimba, chimes, Irish harp and Hohner Tubon, as well as resonator, pedal steel and open-tuned twelve-string guitars.[329] The band's music prominently featured the autoharp,[314] a stringed instrument with buttons which, when depressed, produce preset combinations of chords, leaving it typically used as rhythm instrument.[330] The instrument was mostly associated with folk music,[331] but few folk-rock or rock acts had employed it.[76] Sebastian amplified his autoharp by affixing a ukulele contact microphone onto the back of it and then plugging it into an amplifier,[72][76] a technique he developed in the rehearsal room before the band's first recording session.[324] To generate more bottom end, the band added piano underneath,[324] which Sebastian later said "create[d] the effect of a huge autoharp".[92]

Sebastian played a 1957[332] sunburst Gibson Les Paul electric guitar in live performances and on the band's recordings,[333] and he used a Heritage Gibson as his main acoustic guitar.[116][nb 18] Yanovsky's main guitar was a Guild Thunderbird,[335][336] which he bought from Manny's Music in Midtown Manhattan around 1964.[335] Soon after recording "Do You Believe in Magic" in June 1965, he replaced the guitar's original Guild pickups with humbuckers, which he thought "weren't quite as warm the originals, but they aged nicely".[337] He also sometimes played a Fender Esquire.[336] He favored a Fender Super Reverb as his standard amplifier, which he later said managed to add extra bottom end while also being loud.[335]

The Lovin' Spoonful's image was influential on their contemporaries.[133] The author Bob Stanley later described the band's look as a clash between that of the Beatniks and the Beatles;[338] the American men's fashion magazine Esquire produced a fashion spread of the band in its June 1966 issue, detailing how the group sported "mod gear", but from New York's Seventh Avenue rather than London's Carnaby Street.[339]

The group wore clothes with stripes and spots,[338] the former of which had been popularized by Brian Jones.[340] Sebastian often wore denim[338] and granny glasses,[133] the later of which he adopted from Fritz Richmond,[60] and which John Lennon subsequently adopted in late 1966.[341] Yanovsky is generally recognized as the first rock musician to wear cowboy hats and fringed buckskin jackets.[340] After meeting the fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn in December 1965 on the Sunset Strip, Franklyn designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky,[118] and his wardrobe also consisted of fur coats,[133] mod ties, corduroy jackets, vests and boutonnières.[340] The band's stage act was both eccentric and extroverted,[308] 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".[314]