1960s Bohemian-rock group The Mugwumps is famous not for what they did as a band, but for what they accomplished after they broke up. Members Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty became half of hippie-folkies The Mamas and the Papas, while guitarist Zal Yanovsky joined parent-approved pop quartet The Lovin’ Spoonful.
The Lovin’ Spoonful (founded by Steve Boone and Joe Butler) referred to their feel-good, all-American sound as “good-time music” and cranked out hits like “Do You Believe in Magic” and “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” at the height of the British Invasion. While they had a hand in revolutionizing pop music (rumor has it the Grateful Dead credits the Spoonful with inspiring them to go electric, and the Spoonful were the first to play at many college campuses as high-school concerts), their name was a nod to a forbear. “I’ve got to go to Memphis, bring her back to Leland. I wanna see my baby ‘bout a lovin’ spoonful, my lovin’ spoonful,” a not-so-squeaky-clean Mississippi John Hurt sang in “Coffee Blues.”
But it wasn’t all love—or good times, for that matter—for the Spoonful. Canadian citizen Yanovsky famously quit the band in 1967 following a high-profile drug bust. Critically hailed harmonica player John Sebastian left the following year, foreshadowing the band’s demise.
Boone used his free time to invest in a sailboat, in which he cruised the Caribbean while writing new material (curiously, the same lifestyle that made Jimmy Buffett famous just a few years later). Later, he set up a floating recording studio and made a living as a producer and river guide.
Following a 1991 settlement with their record company, three of the Spoonful (Boone, Butler and Jerry Yester, Yanovsky’s replacement) quietly started touring again. Hey, if the Rolling Stones and Dylan could make it on the road, why not the band who penned the anthemic hot-weather hit “Summer in the City”? Late-career highlights included a version of “Summer” in the opening credits of 1995’s Die Hard: With A Vengeance, the release of Live at the Hotel Seville in 1999 and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Lovin’ Spoonful play the Rock n’ Kiss Stage at Coxe Ave. from 4-5:30 p.m. on Sunday.
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