Lovin Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful is an American folk rock band formed in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1964. The band was among the most popular groups in the United States for a short period in the mid-1960s and their music and image influenced many of the contemporary rock acts of their era. Beginning in July 1965 with their debut single "Do You Believe in Magic", the band had seven consecutive singles reach the Top Ten of the U.S. charts in the eighteen months that followed, including the number two hits "Daydream" and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" and the chart-topping "Summer in the City".Led by their primary songwriter John Sebastian, the Lovin' Spoonful took their earliest influences from jug band and blues music, reworking them into a popular music format. In 1965, the Lovin' Spoonful helped pioneer the development of the musical genre of folk rock as a popular format. By 1966, the group was "one of the most highly regarded American bands", and they were the year's third best-selling singles act in the U.S., after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. As psychedelia expanded in popularity in 1967, the Lovin' Spoonful struggled to transition their approach and saw diminished sales before disbanding in 1968.The Lovin' Spoonful's original four-piece lineup consisted of Sebastian (guitar, harmonica, autoharp, vocals), Zal Yanovsky (guitar, vocals), Steve Boone (bass guitar) and Jan Carl (drums). Before Sebastian and Yanovsky founded the band, the two were active in Greenwich Village's folk music scene, and Boone was a member of one of the Village's first rock groups, the Sellouts. Carl was fired in early 1965 after making only one live appearance with the group, and he was replaced with the drummer and singer Joe Butler, another former member of the Sellouts. Tensions arose within the Lovin' Spoonful after Yanovsky and Boone were arrested for marijuana possession in San Francisco in May 1966. The pair revealed their drug source to authorities to avoid Yanovsky being deported to his native Canada, an action which soured the band's reputation within the West Coast's burgeoning counterculture after it was more widely reported that December. Due to disagreements over their artistic direction, the band fired Yanovsky in May 1967, and he commenced a brief and commercially unsuccessful solo career. He was replaced with Jerry Yester, a producer and former member of the Modern Folk Quartet. The original iteration of the Lovin' Spoonful last publicly performed in June 1968, after which time Sebastian departed the group and pursued a briefly successful solo career. The band dissolved later that year. In 2000, the Lovin' Spoonful was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw Sebastian, Yanovsky, Butler and Boone perform together for the last time. Yanovsky died of a heart attack two years later. Sebastian has remained active as a solo act, and Butler, Boone and Yester began touring under the name the Lovin' Spoonful in 1991.