Do You Believe in Magic?
Posted by: herm on 16 December 2002
Zal Yanovsky dead
Remember The Lovin' Spoonful?
I'm not a pop / rock music fan, but I do have the Buddha Records / BMG compilation of this band's material, as I used to have the original vinyl records, 35 years back. I haven't spent a lot of time in my life without some kind of Spoonful within reach, as the fastest way to some fun.
There are very few bands that are that much fun. Most sixties pop was about lurve, but few bands managed to voice a healthy obsession with girl mystique as well as The Lovin' Spoonful did, as in Do You Believe in Magic; You Didn't Have to Be So Nice, Younger Girl and many many other songs.
Zal Yanovsky was the guitar player with those great ashkenaze looks (he was from the same Montreal background as Saul Bellow, only two generations later) - he was the wild man in the band, the clown genius, the one who singer John Sebastian felt he had to compete with, and that's where all those songs came from.
Yanovsky kept on going after he left the Spoonful, going solo and running a restaurant in lakeside Ontario called Chez Piggy. He was 58 years old when he died. I wish he didn't have to do it...
Herman
Remember The Lovin' Spoonful?
I'm not a pop / rock music fan, but I do have the Buddha Records / BMG compilation of this band's material, as I used to have the original vinyl records, 35 years back. I haven't spent a lot of time in my life without some kind of Spoonful within reach, as the fastest way to some fun.
There are very few bands that are that much fun. Most sixties pop was about lurve, but few bands managed to voice a healthy obsession with girl mystique as well as The Lovin' Spoonful did, as in Do You Believe in Magic; You Didn't Have to Be So Nice, Younger Girl and many many other songs.
Zal Yanovsky was the guitar player with those great ashkenaze looks (he was from the same Montreal background as Saul Bellow, only two generations later) - he was the wild man in the band, the clown genius, the one who singer John Sebastian felt he had to compete with, and that's where all those songs came from.
Yanovsky kept on going after he left the Spoonful, going solo and running a restaurant in lakeside Ontario called Chez Piggy. He was 58 years old when he died. I wish he didn't have to do it...
Herman