The Lovin' Spoonful

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The Lovin' Spoonful was an American pop-rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. The band's name was inspired by some lines in a song of Mississippi John Hurt's about Maxwell House Coffee, called the "Coffee Blues".

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Career

The band had its roots in a John Sebastian bohemian folk group called the Mugwumps, who played coffee houses and small clubs. The group split to form the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas and Papas. Sebastian, who grew up in contact with music and musicians, was the son of a much-recorded and highly technically accomplished harmonica player. He had reached maturity toward the end of the American folk-music revival that spanned the 1950s to early '60s. Sebastian was joined by guitarist Zal Yanovsky in the Spoonful. The band also featured popular drummer-vocalist Joseph Campbell Butler and bassist Steve Boone.

The Lovin' Spoonful became part of the American response to the British Invasion and was noted for such folk-flavoured hits as "Jug Band Music", "Do You Believe in Magic", "You Didn't Have to be So Nice", and "Daydream." Putting an "anti-drug" spin on the traditional folksong "Blues in the Bottle", the Lovin' Spoonful endeared themselves to radio stations across the United States. Soon they were a cross-over hit, topping both rock'n'roll and country charts with "Nashville Cats". Other hits were "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind", "Six O'Clock", and "Younger Girl". Another of their hits was the more hard-edged "Summer in the City".

Early in their recording and airwave career, Lovin' Spoonful members termed their approach "good-time music." Soon-to-be-members of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead were part of the West Coast acoustic folk-music scene when the Lovin' Spoonful came to town while on tour. They credited the Lovin' Spoonful concert as a fateful experience, after which they decided to leave the folk scene and 'go electric'.

The chart-topping band were originally to perform on the television show that became The Monkees, and also gained an added bit of publicity when Butler replaced Jim Rado in the role of Claude for a sold-out four-month run with the Broadway production of the rock musical Hair. The Lovin' Spoonful's music was also featured in Woody Allen's first feature film, "What's Up, Tiger Lily." Zal Yanovsky quit the band after the "You're a Big Boy Now" album was released in May of 1967, and was replaced by Jerry Yester, formerly of the Modern Folk Quartet. The Lovin' Spoonful received a resurgence of interest upon their acceptance into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and the 1995 film, Die Hard: With a Vengeance which used their song, "Summer In The City" as a theme song.