How an obscure and commercially unsuccessful old folk band like The Mugwumps could produce half the members of two Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame groups is beyond me. Cass Elliott and Denny Doherty would go on to form half of The Mamas and The Papas, while singer\/harpist\/autoharp player John Sebastian and lead guitarist Zal Yanovsky formed The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful with drummer Joe Butler and bassist Steve Boone.<\/p>\n
The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful were inducted into The Rock And Hall Of Fame on the strength of a series of impeccably produced and extremely catchy single releases issued during the last half of the 1960s. Songs such as \u201cSummer In The City,\u201d \u201cYou Didn\u2019t Have To Be So Nice,\u201d \u201cDid You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind,\u201d \u201cDo You Believe In Magic,\u201d \u201cRain On The Roof,\u201d \u201cDaydream,\u201d and \u201cNashville Cats\u201d all reached the American Top Ten and sold millions of copies. Their sound was labeled good-time music, and while it may not have been essential to the development of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, it was pleasant and extremely popular.<\/p>\n
The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful\u2019s catalogue has been reissued many times through the years and in many different formats. One of the best is Anthology<\/i>, issued by Rhino in 1990. While it is not by any means a complete presentation of their music, its 26 tracks do cover the highlights, and for a singles band that is enough.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s big hits are still recognizable five-plus decades later and are \u201960s folk\/pop at its best. The only single release to depart from this formula was the brilliant \u201cSummer In The City\u201d which topped the American charts during 1966. It was a gritty rock song, complete with sound effects that made you feel a part of the inner city. Rolling Stone ranked it as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time.<\/p>\n
This CD does delve a little deeper into their catalogue. \u201cJug Band Music\u201d was a whimsical look at their musical roots. The gentle \u201cYounger Girl\u201d was a hit for The Critters. \u201cPow\u201d was used by Woody Allen in his movie What\u2019s Up Tiger Lily. \u201cNight Owl Blues\u201d and \u201cButchie\u2019s Tune\u201d show the Spoonful could have a harder edge every once in a while.<\/p>\n
The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful may not come to mind very often but Anthology<\/i> is a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, a trip back to the sunny side of the late \u201960s. Given everything else that was going on at the time, it\u2019s not a bad place to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":34519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10744],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46364","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-lovin-spoonful","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46364"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46364"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}