Lovin' Spoonful and The Grass Roots

John Sebastian, son of accomplished harmonica player John Sebastian, grew up around music and musicians towards the end of the American folk music revival. Alongside guitarist Zal Yanovsky, formerly of The Mugwumps, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, who would later form the Mamas & the Papas, bassist Steve Boone and drummer-vocalist Joe Butler. The band made their recording debut with four songs on the multi-artist compilation “What’s Shakin’” in 1966 on Kama Sutra records.

With producer Erik Jacobsen at the reigns, the Lovin’ Spoonful’s first official single “Do You Believe in Magic” reached No. 9 on the Billboard Singles chart. The group, who wrote all of their own songs and released the subsequent smash hits “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice”, “Daydream”, “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?”, and the No. 1 instantly recognisable Hit “Summer in the City” all before 1966.

In 1967, the Lovin’ Spoonful were the recipients of a drug bust, and Boone and Yanovsky were arrested for marijuana possession. The pair were later freed for revealing their source, though came under particular scrutiny from the growing hippie counterculture, who called for a boycott of all Spoonful products. However, the Lovin’ Spoonful were undeniably more pop than folk and rock, and largely appealed to mainstream teenagers thus weren’t affected as much as they could have been by the boycott.

Later in 1967 Yanovsky left the group and was replaced by Jerry Yester, formerly the producer of the Association. After the release of albums “You’re A Big Boy Now” (soundtrack) and “Everything Playing”, band leader Sebastian left the group, ending the Lovin’ Spoonful’s most successful period.

In 1991, Butler, Boone and Jerry Yester reconvened the band, and after three decades released a new album “Live at the Hotel Seville” in 1999. In 2000 the original members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and performed “Do You Believe in Magic” at the ceremony.

If you care about the reasons that a band formed, then prepare to be disappointed. The Grass Roots were, at least at the beginning, a pretty naked attempt to cash in on the burgeoning Folk-Rock phenomenon that was sweeping across the United States in the mid-1960s. Dunhill Records put the producer and songwriter duo of Steve Barri and P.F Sloan up to it and one of the songs they demoed, titled “Where Were You When I Needed You”, was demoed by the Sloan himself. This was the track that convinced the label to go through with the project, and the single was sent to several San Francisco based radio stations. The single did reasonable business for the fledgling project and the label, along with Barri and Sloan, began looking for a band that could perform as The Grass Roots full time.

The San Francisco Bay area band The Bedouins were chosen to become The Grass Roots and got off to a good start with a version of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad Of A Thin Man”. It was released as a single and saw them achieve their first airplay on radio stations around Southern California. The band started to generate some serious hype for themselves but kneecapped it before they could capitalize on it by demanding that they release some of their blues-rock influenced original material. Barri and Sloan cut themselves off from the project and it was decided to start over from scratch with a new line-up, even though an album had been released but had not sold very well. However, come 1966, a band called The 13th Floor submitted a demo tape to Dunhill Records, and the producers for the project had found their Grass Roots.

By the summer of 1967, the band had their first top ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the form of “Let’s Live For Today” and for the next five years they were one of the most successful Californian acts around, with another two top ten singles coming with 1968’s “Midnight Confessions” and 1971’s “Sooner Or Later”. However, save for 1968’s Gold certified “Golden Grass” they never had as much luck on the album charts, leading to a change of sound around the late 60’s to a more brass heavy, rhythm and blues inflected sound. The band continued to have line-up troubles around this time but their records were selling, having a huge amount of hits during this time.

In 1974, The Grass Roots left their home of Dunhill Records and ever since then, a version of The Grass Roots has toured around playing their extensive back catalogue to a thriving audience. In 1982, they even set a world record for the largest audience ever played to by a rock band, at an Independence Day concert where they performed to over half a million people. Clearly they’re a band doing something right, and even if they formed to cash in on something, they’ve clearly since evolved into a truly great band in their own right, and for that, they come highly recommended to this very day.