The Lovin' Spoonful

Rooted in New York's influential Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s, Lovin' Spoonful emerged to create a series of classic international hits, including Daydream, Summer In The City and Do You Believe In Magic? The band was centred around John Sebastian, who'd been brought up on the great folk and blues musicians - like Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly - and whose bluesy harmonica playing made him something of a local celebrity as he made his recording debut on albums by Fred Neil and Tom Rush. After playing with the Even Dozen Jug Band, Sebastian formed Lovin' Spoonful in 1965 with guitarist Zal Yanovsky, bassist Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler, taking the band name from a line in a Mississippi John Hurt song, The Coffee Blues. Signed to Kama Sutra Records and produced by Erik Jacobsen, their debut single Do You Believe In Magic broke into the US Top 10, triggering a series of folk-influenced hits: with Rain On The Roof and Nashville Cats in 1966 completing a rare feat of making the US Top 10 with each of their first seven singles. In time, the band dumped their acoustic instrumentation to adopt a rockier, more electric sound, but Yanovsky left in 1967 - to be replaced by Jerry Yester - after recording the movie soundtrack album You're A Big Boy Now. When mainman Sebastian left to go solo in 1968, the others continued as a trio with Butler as lead singer, but they split the following year. The original line-up reunited briefly in 1980 and then again in the 1990s, without Sebastian or Yanovsky, who died in 2002.