The Lovin' Spoonful – The Best Of The Lovin' Spoonful

The best photos I’ve seen for this great album! thank you

Strangely has Side 2 tracks on the left of the back cover, Side1 on the right.
A good enough comp. I don't know how the mono mixes may vary, I don't discern any difference.

If you're going to buy a Lovin' Spoonful record, make it a greatest hits. This one has the well-known singles "Summer in the City", "...Make Up Your Mind", and "Do You Believe In Magic". This is an American band with a folky psychedelic sound, reminiscent of CSN or The Grateful Dead.

This pressing sounds decent without any complaints. Copy includes four 8x10 headshot/ pinups of the band...eww.
3 stars.

Marvelous pressing ! Great sounding vinyl flat and quiet - highly recommended

Very nice compilation. Great audio. Definitely stereo. Altogether lovely for collection.

HA! I’ve had so many conversations regarding the moniker The Lovin’ Spoonful chose, and heard so many rummers over the years, that I think it’s time to set the record straight. It’s been said that lovin’ spoonful referred to heron cooking in a spoon, it’s also be said that the song “Day Dream” which was also the title of their second album implied that the boys where doing nothing but having a good time shooting heron and dreaming the day away. And while the lads certainly took their fair share of the medications of the day, with Yal Yanovsky managing to get arrested in 1967 for marijuana, and seeking not to be deported, he gave up the name of his dealer. Even though he could play like Elmore James, Floyd Cramer and Chuck Berry, the consequence was that both he and the band were ostracized by fans and the music community, and was a central point for Sebastian going out on his own.

But as usual, I digress … The Lovin’ Spoonful took their name from line in Mississippi John Hurt’s blues classic “Coffee Blues,” a line that went like this with a bit of spoken word at the beginning:

This is the “Coffee Blues”, I likes a certain brand – Maxwell’s House – it’s good till the last drop, just like it says on the can.

I used to have a girl cookin’ a good Maxwell House. She moved away.
Some said to Memphis and some said to Leland,
but I found her.
I wanted her to cook me some good Maxwell’s House. You understand, if I can get me just a spoonful of Maxwell’s House, do me much good as two or three cups this other coffee.
I’ve got to go to Memphis, bring her back to Leland
I wanna see my baby ’bout a lovin’ spoonful, my lovin’ spoonful
Well, I’m just got to have my lovin’
(spoken: I found her)
Good mornin’, baby, how you do this mornin’?
Well, please, ma’am, just a lovin’ spoon,
just a lovin’ spoonful
I declare, I got to have my lovin’ spoonful
My baby packed her suitcase and she went away
I couldn’t let her stay for my lovin’,
my lovin’ spoonful
Well, I’m just got to have my lovin’
Good mornin’, baby, how you do this mornin’?
Well, please, ma’am, just a lovin’ spoon,
just a lovin’ spoonful
I declare, I got to have my lovin’ spoonful
Well, the preacher in the pulpit, jumpin’ up and down
He laid his bible down for his lovin’
(spoken: Ain’t Maxwell House all right?)
Well, I’m just got to have my lovin’

Anyway, the song is about coffee, nothing more than a spoonful of java.

While their music is in no way remarkable or revolutionary, what The Lovin’ Spoonful laid down was sheer good time music, that was easy on the heart and easy on the head. Their songs were catchy, yet often fragile, quietly filled with a joyous optimism that many of the mid level British invasion bands lacked. Listen, by no means am I indicating that the music The Lovin’ Spoonful put out was even good, it was merely average, and to be honest, it was invested with cover versions of old folk songs that sent fans running for the album’s single releases such as “Do You Believe In Magic,” “Younger Girl,” and “Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind,” where the band’s talent’s blossomed. Each album foreshadowed what was to come, where on their fourth album Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful they managed to pull together a delivered perhaps the finest album of their career, filled with tracks such as “Summer In The City,” the haunting “Rain On The Roof” and “Coconut Grove;” though it wouldn’t be until their next outing where they would shattered the world with “Darlin’ Be Home Soon,” a song that became an anthem during the Viet Nam War, a song filled with the complexities of both love and sorrow, loss and joy.

Yet again I get off track … The Lovin’ Spoonful are a musical legacy that some would infer are all too overlooked and even neglected, but they weren’t. Their albums certainly may have been, but their 45’s were things of wonder, songs that earned more jukebox play than any other band from the time, save The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Their music was seamless, pure Americana folk and jug band numbers set to a new era that demanded a sense of sincerity and clarity. So yes, even a meteoric career can have its moments that seem to last for an eternity. And all this leaves me rather perplexed at what I’m actually trying to say, at what I can suggest to you … and I suppose that would be to settle on one of their compilations or greatest hits, where the silliness and overtly folkiness has been filtered out. With that being said, you just may find yourself wanting to take the journey that I lived through, though what you’ll find on my turntable will be The Best Of The Lovin’ Spoonful, and The Best Of The Lovin’ Spoonful Vol. Two.

Every album, and every song that 'makes' that album what it is, needs to be contextually placed into history, so please, indulge me ... here were the times from which the number "Summer In The City" rose. During the summer of 1966 a heat wave boiled New York City at the most brutal temperatures recorded since 1869, the year weather data began to be consistently collected. For 34 days it was 90 degrees or higher.

The conflict in Vietnam was also heating up with 382,010 men drafted into service that year, 151,019 more than the previous year. Opposition to the war as well as to chronic discrimination against blacks, women and gays was gathering steam in the city. Clashes broke out elsewhere, with race riots that summer in Chicago and Lansing, Michigan.

On August 1st in Austin, Texas a lone gunman introduced America to mass murder. Charles Whitman killed his mother and wife and then more than a dozen people, sniper-style, from the University of Texas’s clock tower, wounding more than 30 others.

Meanwhile, “Summer in the City,” a propulsive, apolitical rock song by the New York based the Lovin’ Spoonful, was climbing the charts to No. 1, reassuring listeners that “despite the heat it’ll be all right.” Sung and co-written by John Sebastian, the band’s frontman, the song was conceived by his younger brother Mark Sebastian, when he was just fourteen, with Steve Boone, the bass player, contributed the memorable instrumental interlude. The three shared writing credit and continue to reap royalties. The song has endured as an anthem for every heat wave since and has been covered by Quincy Jones, Joe Cocker and Isaac Hayes among others.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Love the "suitable for a frame" pictures.

The back cover of this version is different, and odd in that it lists the B-side tracks before the A-side tracks. Also, it appears the graphic above is not the cover for this version.