John Benson Sebastian was born on March 17, 1944 in Greenwich Village, New York City. His mother, Jane Bishir, was a radio scriptwriter, and his father, John, was a classical 
harmonica player who performed with renowned acts such as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic and ensembles in Rome and Milan. John, known as "J.B." to friends and family, and his younger brother Mark, grew up surrounded by music and enjoying visits from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives and more.
John's original ambitions included working as a sail maker and a veterinarian, but was attracted to the blossoming Greenwich Village scene and decided to pursue a career in music after a brief stint at NYU as an Italian major. He had been playing harmonica since age four, and guitar since his teenage years when he worked in a Village guitar shop, earning his first instrument. He had also long been fascinated with another instrument, the autoharp. However, when he asked his father for one, his father refused, mainly because he felt it was kind of a cop-out, since the chords were just played by pressing down on felts, and required no real skill. (Later, his dad forced to eat his words when the autoharp featured prominently on the Spoonful's first hit, Do You Believe In Magic?)
In the early 1960s, John was invited to join the Even Dozen Jug Band, an ensemble of talented folks who modeled themselves after another notable act of the day, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. (Check out the Even Dozen Jug Band, for real, they're amazing. They played Carnegie Hall for God's sakes.) At the same time, John was doing some session work for Elektra Records as a harmonica player.
Fate came calling when John met Zal Yanovsky at "Mama" Cass Elliot's apartment where a group of people had gathered to watch the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. From there, they formed the foundation of the Lovin' Spoonful, with John performing the majority of the writing and singing duties. John left the Spoonful in 1968 to pursue his solo career.
I love this little blurb from John about the Spoonful: "The Lovin' Spoonful was truly the first American band in post-Beatle America that was not seeking to imitate the English sound. We were seeking to conbine as many American influences as we could. Now, granted, the Beatles had taken as many American influences as they could to incorporate into their sound. But part of what made them who they were was the fact that they were Englishmen. Rather than try to imitate Englishness, we decided to follow them only in the sense that we were going to be a self-contained band, without using any session musicians and by doing our own writing."
Post-Spoonful, John released a string of solo albums, including John B. Sebastian and Welcome Back, which featured the hit theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter. He's also well-known for his impromptu performance at Woodstock, and his penchant for tie-dye (ain't nothing wrong with that). In more recent years, John has been involved in several musical projects, one of which was John Sebastian and the J-Band, a new incarnation of a jug band. A non-musical project of his was authoring a children's book in 1993 called J.B.'s Harmonica, which was based on his own childhood.
He's also been married twice: his first marriage, to Lorey in the late 1960s, only lasted 18 months; his second marriage, to Catherine in 1970, has lasted over 40 years. (As John said when I saw him in concert once, "I've been married to the same 19-year-old girl for 38 years." Adorable.) Additionally, he and Catherine have two sons, Benson and Charlie.