Do You Believe In Magic?, 1965

Something's happening and it's getting clearer every day - stiffness is dissolving.

Take for example, THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL. They dress like comic book characters. They move like a carton of ping pong balls on their way to some great party somewhere. It couldn't have happened before now.

"...and I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden no more thing for free and like that, and there I was, playing with John."

Zal Yanovsky, twenty, lead guitarist from Toronto, Canada. Started playing folk music at fifteen. Quit high school at sixteen and became folk singer. Went to Israel for a little while. Returned, lived on the streets - "...then I lived in a laundromat for seven months." Roamed around as a folk guitar accompanist until he fell prey to the lure of electrical musical equipment. Zal became a convert to reddy kilowatt because... "it's loud and people dance to it, and it's loud." Later he met John in Greenwich Village.

"Zal and I just wandered all around the West Village telling each other that when we needed a bass player and a drummer, they would appear."

John Sebastian, twenty-one, plays guitar, harmonica, and autoharp. Born and raised in Greewich Village, John started playing harmonica as a child and guitar at twelve. Lived in Italy for five years. After a year as a guitarmaker's apprentice, he worked on his own as a studio harmonica player, working with jug bands and some of the young city-country blues musicians. Intended to make sails in Marblehead, Mass., but John was allergic to rust paint so he went back to New York and combined forces with Zal.

"I was going to quit rock and roll, go to Europe, go to school, and be straight but I was knocked out and awed by the musicians there."

Steve Boone was born in Came Le Jeune Naval Hospital in North Carolina. He is twenty-one, six foot three inches tall, and he swears that his is related to Daniel Boone's brother, but he also lies about his family having once owned the Times Tower buiding in Manhattan and one-fifth of Delaware. Steve started playing rhythm guitar at seventeen after an accident which had him in traction for two months. He's played in a swing band, played rock and roll, gone to Europe, come back and met John and Zal. Steve plays electric bass.

"They really didn't have much choice. At the time, I was the only person I know who lived in the Village who didn't play guitar."

Joe Butler, twenty-two, is a fugitive of Great Neck, Long Island. Fled from the accordion player he accompanied with his drums when he was thirteen, Joe's labored as an undertaker's helper and a "butcher's aide"; completed high school and began college; as well as having played in a twist band in several of the chicquer, gay, clubs on Long Island. Moved to New York where he was working with a band in the Village when he and Steve met John and Zal.

Immediately they dived into the famous Greenwich Village folk music gestalt. Their first job was at the Night Owl Cafe. Owner Joe Mara's reaction was, "I heard it all and dese guys don't make it."

Firmly they retreated to the basement of the Albert Hotel. Each day they would take the freight elevator down, the electric stuff filling a laundry cart. They had to cross an enormous black pool every day in the basement, which was full of water bugs, centipedes, and sightless fish. Ancient flakes would be vibrated loose from everything and a soft rain of plaster covered The Lovin' Spoonful like dandruff. They started wearing different funny hats to keep their hair clean. The lower echelons of the hotel staff cheered them on neglecting all work for a period of days, then the boss cracked.

After two months they emerged, pale and blinking, and marched on the Night Owl. Their new professionalism so impressed the owner that he cheerfully rehired them for an indefinite period of time and at his own expense had printed up 1000 balloons saying "I LOVE YOU - THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL." "It had to happen," said John.

Notes by Peter Stampfel and Antonia