![\"\"](\"https:\/\/terenceblacker.com\/New\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Lovin-S.jpg\")
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At first glance, the Lovin\u2019 Spoonful look like a generic group of the time \u2013 the west coast zaniness, the granny glasses, the drugs busts \u2013 but I suspect that Sebastian\u2019s best songs\u00a0 (Do You Believe in Magic?, \u2018Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mindd\u2019, Daydream\u2019, \u2018Summer in the City\u2019\u00a0 will be being listened to when many of the flashier songs of the time have become period pieces.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0an interview<\/a>, John Sebastian has said:<\/p>\n \u2018I think that my past stands me in good stead in that it does have a certain strength for musicians. In other words, musicians know that going back to the Spoonful, what we were doing was not copying. It was original. These are all things that stand you in good stead in the long run.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not copying is the key. John Sebastian was always his own man.\u00a0 His songs, which were described as \u2018good time music\u2019, have a wit and charm that are unmistakably his own.<\/p>\n Musically, he brings together the Greenwich Village influences of the early 1960s\u00a0 \u2013 the mainstream folk of the Kingston Trio, the new folk of Van Ronk and Dylan, some jazz, some roots, an echo of Tin Pan Alley, even a touch of 1950s doo-wop music. And, of course, the Beatles were coming.<\/p>\n The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful were created at the moment when the Beatles were conquering the world \u2013 indeed their music was\u00a0 a reaction\u00a0to the British invasion. It was while watching the Fab Four playing the Ed Sullivan Show on a TV at Mama Cass\u2019s flat that\u00a0 Sebastian met guitarist Zalk Yanovsky and\u00a0the idea of forming a group emerged<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018We didn\u2019t want to imitate these guys. We were going to look like regular street guys.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sebastian\u2019s musical influences took him back to the jug-band music of the 1920s which he gave a gentle, witty 1960s makeover. I love his easy melodies and the quiet swing and wit of his lyrics. Now and then (notably in his 1976 TV theme-time hit \u2018Welcome Back<\/a>\u2018) he reminds me of early Randy Newman.<\/p>\n These are not songs are going to change the world \u2013 they are catching small everyday moments and that\u2019s more difficult than it looks. John Sebastian had not only absorbed and learned from American music of the past but was determined for his own personal voice to come through in a way that was quite unusual at the time. Unsurprisingly, Ray and Dave Davies were Lovin\u2019 Spoonful fans. He was, in a way, a precursor of the great wave of singer-songwriters of the early 1970s.<\/p>\n His lyrical voice is entirely his own \u2013 something which may have been the influence of his mother who wrote for radio.<\/p>\n \u2018Having the skill to write funny, which is what my mother could do, is the most valuable thing, i think. You know, writing songs \u2013 it really comes in there.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2018Nashville Cats\u2019 is a sweet, light song paying tribute to a part of America where not only did everyone seem to play the guitar, but they also played really well.<\/p>\n It has a country-ish groove but it\u2019s an outsider\u2019s view of country music (although it has become a great bluegrass standard when played by the Del McCoury Band\u00a0<\/a>). I love the way\u00a0the lyrics<\/a>, with their tumbling rhythm and little internal rhymes, drive the song forward.<\/p>\n \u2018Yeah, I was just thirteen, you might say I was a<\/em> John Sebastian has been happy to talk about those days and do new\u00a0 takes on the old songs \u2013 the recent version by the black country singer Tony Jackson, with Sebastian happily mouthing the words as he does backing vocals, is particularly worth watching.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s the Lovin\u2019 Spoonful, with their distinctive production who most perfectly \u2013\u00a0 \u2018clean as country water\u2019\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 capture that moment in musical history.<\/p>\n Good time music indeed. Thank you, John Sebastian.<\/p>\n
\nMusical proverbial knee-high<\/em>
\nWhen I heard a couple new-sounding tunes on the tubes<\/em>
\nAnd they blasted me sky-high.<\/em>
\nAnd the record man said every one is a Yellow Sun<\/em>
\nRecord from Nashville<\/em>
\nAnd up North there ain\u2019t nobody buys them<\/em>
\nAnd I said, \u201cBut I will!\u201d\u2018<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n