1964–1965: Formation Greenwich Village and folk music 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. 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. Elliot, Sebastian and Yanovsky were all active in the
folk-music scene in
Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City, and the three were greatly influenced by the Beatles' performance; Sebastian later reflected, "It affected heavily... [meaning] my specific generation". Later that night, Elliot encouraged Sebastian and Yanovsky to play guitars, and Sebastian remembered discovering they had "a tremendous affinity" for one another. Sebastian, the son of the classical
harmonica player
John Sebastian Sr., grew up in a Village apartment which neighbored
Washington Square Park. The younger Sebastian often went to the park to play music, and he also played in rock bands as a teenager at his
prep school in
New Jersey. He became a multi-instrumentalist, being proficient on guitar, harmonica, piano and the
autoharp. Beginning in the early 1960s, he worked as a
studio musician. 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.
Denny Doherty, another musician active in Yorkville, invited Yanovsky to join his folk group,
the Halifax Three, which later relocated to Greenwich Village. After the Halifax Three broke up in June1964, Elliot recruited Yanovsky and Doherty to join her own group,
the Mugwumps. 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. 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." 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. After the Mugwumps dissolved in late1964, Sebastian and Yanovsky began planning to form their own group, which they envisioned as an electric
jug band. 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." 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. 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, and the two soon bonded over their shared interests of smoking marijuana and listening to eclectic music. Like Sebastian, Jacobsen had been affected by the new sound of the Beatles; he later recalled that while touring in early1964, 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." As part of his effort to switch focus towards production, Jacobsen recorded
demos for musicians in the Village, including for Sebastian. Sebastian's demos of "Warm Baby" and "Rooty-Toot" featured experimentation and exotic instruments, including African drums, bongo drums and a
sitar. Jerry Yester recalled playing on "Warm Baby" with other local folk musicians, including Jesse Colin Young and
Sticks Evans.
Earliest lineup From 1962 to 1964,
Steve Boone played bass guitar in several
Long Island rock bands with the drummer
Joe Butler. 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. In December1964, at the insistence of Butler, Boone went to the Village Music Hall, a small music club on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village. There, he met Sebastian and Yanovsky, and though he had no background in folk music, 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. 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. 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. That week, Boone attended Sebastian's performance at a Greenwich Village club. Sebastian's show, made up of a quickly assembled group of Fred Neil,
Tim Hardin,
Buzzy Linhart and
Felix Pappalardi, greatly impressed Boone, who later remembered it as "one of the most significant nights in my musical life." He also recalled: "I was stunned. I had never heard such power in a folk group before." The performance motivated Boone to enter the Greenwich Village folk scene and join Sebastian and Yanovsky's group. 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. 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 December1964 and January1965, and they also played at local bars in Bridgehampton at night. In late1964 and early1965, to keep earning money before his new band had earned a contract, Sebastian continued performing as a studio musician on other artists' recordings. In this period, he played harmonica on
progressive folk records for several acts, including
Fred Neil,
Jesse Colin Young and
Judy Collins. In January1965, the musician
Bob Dylan asked Sebastian to play bass guitar on his newest album,
Bringing It All Back Home. The album's first day of sessions, January13, 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. 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. Dylan invited Sebastian to return for a separate session held that evening, in which they recorded a remake of the song "
Subterranean Homesick Blues". Having fired Carl, the Spoonful could no longer play at the Bull's Head and were in need of a new rehearsal space. The band had little money and had been living with Elliot in her Village apartment at the
Hotel Albert. 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. 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. 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. 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. The band held a brief residency at Café Bizarre, playing several sets a night for six days a week, leading Sebastian to later reflect, "We learned more at that crappy little club than almost any other gig." 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, and in May 1965, he offered for the band to return to performing at the Night Owl. 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, the latter of which Sebastian sometimes filled in for on drums. The Night Owl's triple-bill was immediately successful, 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. 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, 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. On June7 and 8, 1965, the Spoonful performed at
Club 47, a folk music club in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Boone remembered feeling hesitant to perform at a club known strictly for folk music, but Sebastian recalled that he and Yanovsky were immediately enthusiastic at the prospect of challenging folk enthusiasts: "Did we want to in that room!... We were going to be face to face with the folkies at last." The band played at the venue at the suggestion of Fritz Richmond, who encouraged the group by pointing to Bob Dylan's recent transition to electrified rock, first heard three months earlier with the release of "
Subterranean Homesick Blues", and the newfound popularity of the Byrds, whose
folk rock cover of Dylan's song "
Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number one in North America that month. The term "folk rock" had been coined in the June12 issue of the American music magazine
Billboard by the journalist Eliot Tiegel, who used the term principally to describe the music of the Byrds. Tiegel also counted "the Living Spoonfull" as an act working in the New York area with "a folk-rock sound", even though the group had not yet released a record. 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. Years later, Sebastian recalled a moment from the first set: During the second set, the band received a warm response from the remaining crowd. In retrospect, the author
Richie Unterberger describes the Spoonful's appearance as a "watershed" moment in the history of folk rock. 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. 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."
"Do You Believe in Magic", Kama Sutra Early in the Spoonful's May residency at the Night Owl, Sebastian wrote a new song, "
Do You Believe in Magic", which explored the transformative power of music. 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. The girl stood in contrast to the older
beatnik crowd who typically attended folk performances, and Sebastian recalled that "[she was] dancing like danced – and not like the last generation danced". 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." Sebastian composed the song the following night, and the band worked together at the Albert to finish its arrangement. The Spoonful was enthusiastic about "Do You Believe in Magic" and hoped to record a
demo of the song to flog to record companies. In June1965, 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. Jacobsen invited Yester to participate in the session, adding both piano and backing vocals, and the session musician
Gary Chester played tambourine. 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. After attending one of the Spoonful's performances at the Night Owl,
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. 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.
Elektra Records approached the Spoonful and offered to sign them. 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, and that they would not be clearly identified as a rock act if they signed at a folk-oriented label. Cavallo approached
Paul Rothchild and
Jac Holzman of Elektra and said the band needed an advance of $10,000 before they could sign (). 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. The band instead signed a side-deal with Elektra, which had them record four songs, including Sebastian's song "Good Time Music". 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. The label later included the four songs on the compilation album ''
What's Shakin''', released the following year. The Spoonful signed with Koppelman-Rubin, an entertainment company, who signed the band to
Kama Sutra Records in June1965. As part of the deal,
MGM Records distributed the records, which Kama Sutra released for Koppelman-Rubin. The arrangement's format of multiple
middlemen left little in profits for the band. Sebastian later said that not signing with Elektra was "the worst decision I ever made in my life". 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. The label issued it in the US on July 20, 1965, and it debuted on the
Billboard Hot 100 a month later, remaining on the chart for thirteen weeks and peaking in October at number nine.
1965–1966: American popularity Touring, debut album , 1965 The release of "Do You Believe in Magic" in July1965 propelled the Spoonful to nationwide fame in the US within weeks. 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. 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. Beginning in August, the band toured the
West Coast of the United States. In San Francisco, the band held a two-week residency at
Mother's Nightclub, which then advertised itself as the "world's first psychedelic nightclub", and on August7, 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. In LosAngeles, the Spoonful played at several clubs on the
Sunset Strip, including
Ciro's, the
Whisky a Go Go and
Crescendo Tiger's Tail (later renamed
The Trip). The band appeared for a week at the
hungry i, one of the most prominent clubs in America's folk-music scene, where they were seen by the
San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic
Ralph J. Gleason. 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". the Spoonful headlined a dance party at the
Longshoreman's Union Hall in the city's
Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood. Organized by the concert-production collective
Family Dog Productions, the event combined rock music with light shows and
psychedelic drugs, and it was among the earliest events of its kind in San Francisco; Jacobsen reflected, "That whole idea of going and listening to music and
getting high started there". In attendance at the Longshoreman's show were members of the
Grateful Dead, an acoustic-folk group, who were inspired by the Spoonful's performance to similarly "go electric" in their style. Amid their touring schedule, the Spoonful recorded tracks for their debut album,
Do You Believe in Magic. The band recorded thirteen songs across several sessions between June and September1965, 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. The album's five original compositions were all credited to Sebastian, including "
Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?", which he based on a experience as a child at summer camp when he fell in love with twin sisters. Pointing to the success of the Beatles and the Byrds, the Spoonful's label encouraged the band to trade lead vocal responsibilities; 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"). The album first went on sale on October23, 1965, when the band held an autograph session in
Pleasant Hill, California, and Kama Sutra issued the album nationwide in November. It debuted on the
Billboard Top LPs chart on December 4, and it initially ran on the chart for 19 weeks, peaking in February1966 at number 71. By late1965, the Spoonful had made appearances on the most popular American television variety shows, including
Where the Action Is,
Shindig! and
Hullabaloo. Executives from
NBC approached Cavallo and offered the band the opportunity to star in their own television series,
The Monkees. 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. Rafelson later said that the Spoonful was the only existing group considered for the show before they began auditioning individual actors and musicians in September1965.
Daydream In November1965, the Spoonful embarked on a 19-day package-tour with the American girl group
the Supremes. The acts performed at colleges across the southern US, Both acts traveled by bus and partied together, along with members of the Supremes' backing band,
the Funk Brothers, billed as the
Earl Van Dyke Orchestra. The Spoonful generally enjoyed the tour but found it physically exhausting. Sebastian additionally missed his girlfriend, Loretta "Lorey" Kaye. Near the tour's end, in an effort to raise his own spirits, he composed "
Daydream" while riding on the bus through North Carolina, drawing inspiration from the Supremes' 1964 singles "
Baby Love" and "
Where Did Our Love Go". A stop in
Savannah, Georgia, inspired the beginnings of "Jug Band Music", which Boone later said "recalled pleasant visions of the tour" for him and his bandmates. '', November1965 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. After filming on 29–30November, the band remained in Los Angeles to do several weeks of a residency at the Trip, a short-lived nightclub on
Sunset Boulevard, where
Brian Wilson of
the Beach Boys saw them perform. During their stay, the Spoonful befriended a local fashion designer,
Jeannie Franklyn, who subsequently designed custom-clothing for Yanovsky. They also struck up a friendship with
David Crosby, the rhythm guitarist of the Byrds. Crosby had spoken favorably of the Spoonful in interviews as early as August, often promising reporters that they would be the next big group. 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. Amid their busy TV and live-date schedule, the Spoonful recorded most of their second album
Daydream in four days, from December13 to 16, at
Bell Sound Studios in New York City. 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. 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. Kama Sutra issued the song as a non-album single on November13, and it peaked at number ten on the
Billboard Hot 100 in January1966. The label instead issued "
Daydream" in February1966. The song's release fueled speculation from the press and public about a link between the band and drug use, as the press had often incorrectly speculated that ''the Lovin' Spoonful'' alluded to the spoon used in injecting
heroin. 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. 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. "Daydream" remained on the Hot 100 for twelve weeks, peaking at number two for two weeks in mid-April. but it reached number one on
Cash Box magazine's chart and also reached the top spot in Canada. 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. When the band toured the American South with the Beach Boys from April1 to 9, 1966, the two groups alternated top billing.
1966: International popularity ''What's Up, Tiger Lily?'' soundtrack; European tour Though the Spoonful had achieved quick success in North America, they remained generally unknown in the UK. the Spoonful arrived at
Heathrow Airport to begin their ten-day tour of England and Sweden. Problems which arose during negotiations with the
British Musicians' Union forced the band to limit the number of appearances they made in Britain. 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. The band's time in England allowed them to interact with many of Britain's top musicians. On April18, they performed an invite-only show at the
Marquee Club on Wardour Street, Soho, central London. Several of Britain's top performers were in attendance, including
John Lennon,
George Harrison,
Ray Davies,
Brian Jones,
Steve Winwood,
Spencer Davis and
Eric Clapton. The band were warmly received, and Lennon and Harrison joined them afterwards into the morning at
The May Fair Hotel in
Piccadilly. The next night, following their performance at the Blaises Club in
Kensington, the band befriended Jones as well. After flying to
Stockholm to perform on Swedish television, the Spoonful proceeded to Ireland to attend the 21st-birthday celebration of Browne on April23. Browne, who then regarded the Spoonful as his favorite band, delayed his party by seven weeks in order to coincide with the band's touring and recording schedule. Browne flew the band to Ireland at his own expense to perform a private show, paying them US$10,000 for the performance (). 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,
Chrissie Shrimpton,
John Paul Getty Jr.,
Rupert Lycett Green and
Mike McCartney. Butler recalled that the band's performance was likely substandard, since they were all drunk and high on marijuana. Several guests also partook in the drug
LSD, including Butler, and the Spoonful stayed overnight. The Spoonful flew back to the US on April24, and reports soon followed that they planned to return later in the year for more British shows.
Marijuana bust On May20, 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. Boone and Yanovsky spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the Spoonful's road manager, Rich Chiaro. 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. At a meeting with San Francisco police and the
District Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada. 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. 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. Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source, directing an undercover operative to their source at local party. 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. Their drug source was in turn arrested and served a brief jail sentence. After the drug case went to court in December1966, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's bust became more widespread. The
underground press was especially critical of the band. By early1967, 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. 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. Boone later suggested that the boycott hurt the band's commercial performance, 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". In an article recounting the June1967
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.
"Summer in the City" After having recorded two albums in the second-half of 1965, the Spoonful was stretched for new material in March1966 when they began sessions for a new single. While searching for inspiration, Sebastian recalled a song composed and informally recorded by his fourteen-year-old brother, Mark. 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. 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. Issued in April, "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" reached number two on the
Billboard Hot 100 in June, peaking in August at number 32 after spending 16 more weeks on the chart. the Spoonful held a party to debut their newest single. "Summer in the City" was released on July4. One month later, it overtook
the Troggs' "
Wild Thing" and became the band's first and only number one single in the US. It held the position for three weeks, becoming what the author
Jon Savage terms the "American song of the summer". The song also topped
Cash Box and
Record World charts, and it was number one in Canada. 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. After "Daydream" reached number two in the UK, Only weeks before it began, the band withdrew from the tour. As they announced their withdrawal, the band announced plans to return to Britain in April1967 for a three-week tour. In July1966, the Spoonful played to a crowd of 65,000 at that year's
Newport Folk Festival in
Rhode Island.
Bob Dylan had generated controversy at the previous year's festival when he performed a set of electric rock, but at the 1966 festival, the Spoonful and several other electric bands appeared, including
Howlin' Wolf,
Chuck Berry and
the Blues Project. The Spoonful was well received and received no pushback over their appearance. 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".
''Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful'' Sessions for the Spoonful's third studio album, later released as ''
Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful'', were originally booked for
Columbia Records' 7th Avenue studio in New York from August 16 to September 23, 1966. Recording was delayed after Columbia booked its own artists at the studio. 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. For the first time on one of the band's albums, it consisted of only original material.
Henry Diltz, a member of the Modern Folk Quartet, contributed clarinet to "Bes' Friends" and took the pictures which adorned the LP's sleeve. The album was released in November1966, and it reached number 14 on the
Billboard LPs chart. ", the Spoonful's seventh and final single to reach the US Top Ten 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". The possibility of releasing the song as a single generated disagreement among the members of the Spoonful. "Summer in the City" featured a harder sound than their previous output, and it had attracted new fans to the group after it reached number one on the Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in August. Another song from ''Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful'', the country-tinged "
Nashville Cats", was issued as a single in . It reached number eight on the Hot 100, but despite the band's hopes, it failed to crossover into the country market. 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. 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. In 1966, the Spoonful had five Top Ten singles, making it the band's most successful year to date. 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. 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. Besides achieving commercial success, the Spoonful in 1966 were among the American bands regarded most highly by critics;
1967–1968: Diminished success ''You're a Big Boy Now'' soundtrack; Yanovsky and Jacobsen fired In mid-October1966, 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. After meeting with Coppola in September to discuss the project, Sebastian wrote the songs on his own before presenting them to the musician
Artie Schroeck, who arranged the compositions for an orchestra. After Butler struggled with the drum part, the session musician
Bill LaVorgna played in his place.
David "Fathead" Newman played saxophone during the sessions and
Clark Terry played
flügelhorn. 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". Sebastian's composition flips a genre convention by describing a male subject waiting for a female to return home. 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." 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. In mid-October, Jacobsen publicly announced that he would no longer be producing the Spoonful. Boone suggests in retrospect that the vocal-erasure "probably played a major role" in Jacobsen's departure. 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. Yanovsky especially disliked the soundtrack album's lead single, "Darling Be Home Soon", which was issued in early1967. 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. The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian. "Darling Be Home Soon" peaked at number fifteen, a major disappointment compared to the band's earlier releases and their first single which failed to reach the Top Ten. 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 May1967. In May1967, 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. Butler, who had never gotten along with Yanovsky and was increasingly the target of Yanovsky's insults, agreed with Sebastian. In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired. That June, rumors circulated that the band was breaking up. Yanovsky agreed to appear for the rest of the group's scheduled dates, and he last performed with the Spoonful on , at the
Forest Hills Music Festival in
Queens, New York.
Yester hired, Everything Playing (left), The Spoonful hired Jerry Yester to replace Yanovsky on lead guitar duties. Following the May1967 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". Since mid-1966, when Yester's band the Modern Folk Quartet disbanded, he had been working as a session musician and producer in Los Angeles. In early June1967, he rehearsed with the Spoonful at Sebastian's home in
East Quogue, New York, and he debuted with the band on June30 at the
Memorial Coliseum in
Portland, Oregon. The Spoonful reconvened in August1967 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. 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. Like other folk-rock acts, the Spoonful struggled to modify their musical approach as the new genre of
psychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967. 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. "Six O'Clock", which had been recorded at Columbia before Jacobsen and Yanovsky were fired, was released in April1967 and peaked at number 18. 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. Released in October, the single reached number 27. The band last publicly performed on June1, 1968, at
Parker Field in
Richmond, Virginia. By September, Sebastian announced his intention to pursue a solo career. Sebastian later summed up the band's career as "two glorious years and a tedious one". 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, which he did without the participation of either Boone or Yester. The project'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. Issued in June1968, it peaked at number 73. Butler's finished album, ''
Revelation: Revolution '69'', is credited to "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler". Released that October, it did not chart, In September1967, Buddha issued his debut single, "As Long As You're Here", which reached number 101 on
Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart the following month. In late1967, he began recording his first solo album,
Alive and Well in Argentina, which was released in June1968. The album received little critical or commercial attention, but it spawned a partnership between Yanovsky and his replacement in the Spoonful, Jerry Yester, who produced the album. The two formed "Hair Shirt Productions", which produced recordings in Los Angeles for
Pat Boone,
Tim Buckley and the Fifth Avenue Band. Yanovsky played in
Kris Kristofferson's band on a 1970 European tour, Butler, Boone and Yester began touring under the name the Spoonful in 1991, a venture opposed by both Sebastian and Yanovsky. Augmented by a group of touring musicians, the group released a live album,
Live at the Hotel Seville, in 1999. == Musical style and development ==