By any standards, The Lovin' Spoonful has had a good run. Credited with leading the American response to the British Invasion, with other folk-rock groups like the Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds, the band that recorded such classics as "Summer in the City" and "Do You Believe in Magic?" has had an indelible impact on the history of rock 'n' roll.
The members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Forty years after forming to play what they termed "good-time music," an incarnation of the band featuring three longtime members will hit the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday night, in a concert co-starring another '60s group with a string of hits, the Grass Roots. For the Spoonful, things have changed over the years.
Its founder and original lead singer, John Sebastian, left the group to pursue a solo career in 1968. (He had a No. 1 hit in 1976 with the theme song for the TV series "Welcome Back, Kotter.
") The band released one album without him before folding. The band resurfaced without Sebastian in 1991, after settling a lawsuit with its record label. It consists of original bassist Steve Boone; guitarist Jerry Yester, who played piano on "Do You Believe in Magic?
"; original drummer Joe Butler, who now sings and plays percussion and autoharp; plus new drummer Mike Arturi and guitarist Phil Smith. "The time seemed to be right, and we were itching to do it, to kind of get out there and show what we could do," Butler says. In the years between the breakup and reincarnation, all of the members had successful musical careers.
Butler starred in several Broadway productions, including "Hair," and went on to act in films and compose music for commercials. Boone ran Blue Seas Studio on a houseboat in Baltimore during the '70s and '80s, recording Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Robert Palmer, and is a successful songwriter to this day. Yester established himself as a music producer, working with Tim Buckley and Tom Waits.
He also performed with his original band, the Modern Folk Quartet, and with his brother Jim in The Association. "When we came (back) together, we had a lot of years of experience," says Butler. "And we basically did play on those records.
There were many groups who were famous, even like the Beach Boys and the Byrds, who never really played the tracks. They sang, but they didn't really play the instruments. So we knew what we were doing.
And we all had so much experience onstage." The band translates that experience into a tight, highly dynamic show that mixes classic hits and new material. "We do a really good cross-section of the stuff we think kind of represents the group, because truly, in this genre of folk rock, we're one of the few acts that are working," says Butler.
"You know - the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas - we had some friends, and we do a medley of a couple of songs of theirs, because they're not there to speak for themselves." The band is thrilled to be sharing the stage in Tarrytown with the Grass Roots, whose hits include "Midnight Confessions" and "Let's Live for Today." Butler has known the band's lead singer, Rob Grill, for years.
And he respects that, like the Spoonful, Grill's band is out there, actively sustaining the tradition of the musical style it innovated. "There is a camaraderie of musicians," says Butler. "It's not all competition.
" Butler and his band mates are not just looking back, though. They are all busy writing new music, which they perform live. And they hope to record and release an album of new material.
"We'd love to do it," says Butler. "It's just been difficult to figure out how to do it and where to sell them. We're kind of vain, or vain enough to not want to be connected with a vanity production.
But yes, we all have new songs, and we want to work on them. And they're crackerjack songs." And, in the end, it all comes back to the songs.
Butler may pepper his conversation with anecdotes, about having comedians like Woody Allen and Richard Pryor open for the band in the early days, or watching movies, eating pistachios and drinking beer in bed with Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty from the Mamas and the Papas. But his favorite memory is the first time he and his band mates heard one of their songs on the car radio - not just once, but twice in a row. "It was that moment that I realized things are changing, something is happening, this is that moment I can savor," he says.
"I've always felt sorry for people that have had a dream and haven't had at least part of it come true. It's a moment that gives you succor and comfort for the hard times. And there were hard times.
...
But that moment is one that carries you.
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