Lovin Spoonful

The Lovin’ Spoonful were a wonderfully American response to the British Invasion bands of the mid-'60s, mixing folk, blues, and jug band looseness and attitude with a warm and sunny pop sense to produce several radio staples like “Do You Believe in Magic,” “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?,” “Younger Girl,” “Daydream,” “Didn’t Want to Have to Do It,” and “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice,” all of which are contained in this two-disc set, which combines the Spoonful’s 1965 album Do You Believe in Magic with 1966’s Daydream and adds several bonus tracks of alternative takes, demos, and instrumental backing tracks. The end result is a great way to meet this fun, warm, and delightful American band.

The band's second LP was very strong; this time, most of the tunes are originals, with the exception of a cover of "Bald Headed Lena." Joe Butler and Yanovsky are featured on some lead vocals, and the album includes two more hits, "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" and "Didn't Want to Have to Do It."

With a fun, bright, and wonderful run of hits like "Do You Believe in Magic," "Daydream," and "Summer in the City" behind them, the Lovin' Spoonful began running out of gas by the spring of 1967, and the two albums paired here, You're a Big Boy Now and Everything Playing, both released later that year, show a band that was creatively exhausted. You're a Big Boy Now, the soundtrack to a film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, did generate a couple of good songs, the title tune and the lovely "Darling Be Home Soon," while Everything Playing yielded the joyous "She Is Still a Mystery" and "Six O'Clock," but these were really the last great gasp of a truly great American band. Serious fans of the group will want to have these for the sake of completion, and this two-fer is a good way to get both of them at once, but taken together, it's a swan song.

The band is billed here as "the Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler." Just when everybody had written them off after Sebastian's departure, this flawed gem came out of left field. Butler's smooth voice had graced a few tracks on all of the past LPs, in addition to having a few of his own tunes included. He comes into his own here, but unfortunately, his three originals are the weakest songs on the LP, especially the ultra-hip sound collage "War Games." However, the great pop team of Bonner and Gordon came up with three strong tunes, including the hit "Me About You" (previously done by The Turtles) and the fine "(Till I) Run with You" (the title of the LP as written on the label), with John Stewart supplying the best track, the gorgeous "Never Going Back."