The Lovin' Spoonful's drug bust

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The newspaper's headline reads "1/2 Spoonful Tips", with the subheading "The Finger in the Pot" alongside a picture of Yanovsky and Boone".
The front page of an underground newspaper, implicating Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone as informants (Berkeley Barb, February 17, 1967)

In May 1966, Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone of the Lovin' Spoonful – an American folk-rock band then at the height of its success – were arrested in San Francisco, California, for possessing marijuana. Yanovsky, a Canadian by birth, expected that a conviction would lead to his deportation and a breakup of the band. To avoid this eventuality, the pair cooperated with law enforcement, revealing their drug source at a local party a week after the initial bust.

The Lovin' Spoonful were the first popular music act of the 1960s to be busted for possessing illegal drugs.[1] After Boone and Yanovsky's drug source was arrested in September 1966 and proceedings for his case began that December, the pair's cooperation with authorities was widely reported in the West Coast's burgeoning underground rock press, souring the band's reputation within the counterculture and generating tensions within the group. Yanovsky was fired by his bandmates in May 1967. The Lovin' Spoonful saw diminished commercial success that year, something some authors attribute to the fallout of the drug bust, but other commentators dispute this.

Background[edit]

California and marijuana[edit]

Main article: Cannabis in California

California prohibited marijuana in 1913, but its use was not common in the state until the late 1950s.[2] The 1960s counterculture further accelerated marijuana's use among California's youth;[2][3] arrests for the drug in the state rose from 5,155 per year in 1960 to over 100,000 by 1974.[2] In 1954, the minimum prison term was raised to 1–10 years for possession and 5–15 years for sale.[2]

The Lovin' Spoonful[edit]

refer to adjacent text
The Lovin' Spoonful in a 1965 promotional photograph; Steve Boone at top left and Zal Yanovsky at bottom right

In 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful were one of the most successful popular-music groups in the U.S.[4][5] Between October 1965 and June 1966, the band's first four singles reached the Top Ten of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, two of which reached number two.[6] In March 1966, the band recorded what became their biggest hit, "Summer in the City", which topped the U.S. charts in August.[7]

Originally formed in late 1964 in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood, the Lovin' Spoonful were among the earliest popularizers of the genre of folk rock.[8][9] Folk rock emerged from the American folk music revival, which centered on Greenwich Village in the early 1960s.[10] By 1966, the American pop-music scene shifted towards cities on the U.S.'s West Coast, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.[11] Other early folk-rock acts, like the Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas, located themselves on the West Coast,[12] but the Lovin' Spoonful remained based in New York City.[12]

The Lovin' Spoonful toured the West Coast several times in the second half of 1965, first appearing there only weeks after issuing their debut single, "Do You Believe in Magic".[13] Released on July 20,[14] the single quickly propelled the band to nationwide fame.[15] The band's earliest West Coast shows were at San Francisco's Mother's Nightclub,[16] where they played for two weeks in late July and early August 1965,[17] and they also appeared at the hungry i nightclub,[18] one of the most prominent clubs in America's folk-music scene.[19] Later in the year, on October 24, the group headlined a dance party at the Longshoreman's Union Hall in the city's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood.[20][21] The show was the second party to be organized by the concert-production collective Family Dog Productions,[18] and it marked one of the earliest events in the emerging San Francisco scene;[20][22] Erik Jacobsen, the Lovin' Spoonful's producer, reflected, "That whole idea of going and listening to music and getting high started there".[22][nb 1]

Bust and cooperation[edit]

A photo of the residential neighborhood overlooking San Francisco Bay
Boone and Yanovsky were arrested in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood (pictured 2008).

On May 20, 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful arrived in San Francisco for another tour of the West Coast.[25] That day, Boone and Yanovsky attended a party in the city's Pacific Heights neighborhood at the home of Bill Love, the manager of The Committee, a San Francisco-based improv comedy group.[26] Love, who knew Boone and Yanovsky through a mutual acquaintance, sold the pair marijuana.[26] After Boone and Yanovsky left the party in their rental car, police pulled the pair over, searched the vehicle and discovered the drug.[27][nb 2]

Boone and Yanovsky were arrested and spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the band's road manager, Rich Chiaro.[29] Bob Cavallo, the band's manager, and Charles Koppelman, who had signed them to his entertainment company, flew to San Francisco to begin managing the situation, hiring the attorney Melvin Belli in the process.[30] The band's two other members, John Sebastian and Joe Butler, were not informed on the details of the bust,[31] and the band performed as scheduled on May 21 at the University of California, Berkeley's Greek Theatre,[32] playing for an hour in-front of 5,500 concertgoers.[33]

At a meeting with San Francisco police and the District Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada.[34] Belli expressed to Yanovsky and Boone that they were unlikely to win on the merits of their case and that their only way to avoid charges was to cooperate with authorities.[35] The two initially balked at the idea, but they relented to avoid Yanovsky being deported, something they expected would lead to a breakup of the band.[36] Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,[22] directing an undercover operative to their source at a local party on May 25.[37][38] In exchange, all charges were dropped, their arrest records were expunged, the two did not need to appear in court and there was no publicity related to their arrest.[39]

Fallout[edit]

Boone and Yanovsky's arrests marked the first time members of a popular music act in the 1960s were busted for illegal drugs.[1][nb 3] Three weeks later, on June 10, 1966,[42] Donovan became the first high-profile British pop star to be arrested for possession of cannabis.[43] Busts on the Rolling Stones, Buffalo Springfield, the Beatles and on Jimi Hendrix followed over the next three years.[44][nb 4] Boone suggests in retrospect that, owing to the novelty of the situation, the Lovin' Spoonful's management had no plan in place on how to handle the drug bust.[41]

Police initially arrested Bill Love's girlfriend,[47] but she was released without being charged.[26] Love's arrest followed in September 1966,[38] and preliminary hearings for his case began in early December.[11][38] Around that time, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's involvement as informants became more widespread on the West Coast, particularly in San Francisco.[11] In an attempt to quash the story, the band's management offered to pay for Love's defense attorney[22] or to pay for his silence regarding the matter, options which he refused.[48] Love was convicted on June 5, 1967, on two counts of the sale of marijuana,[49] and he was sentenced the following January.[50][nb 5]

Counterculture reaction[edit]

There were fliers that said, "Groupies: Don't fuck the Lovin' Spoonful – they're finks." ... His (Zal Yanovsky's) thoughts about the band, [the music, the business], and the generation of love, was shattered.[52]

– John Sebastian

The underground press criticized the band over Yanovsky and Boone's decision to act as informants.[22] In early 1967, excerpts of the court transcript were photocopied and hung in public places across San Francisco.[53][54] Chester Anderson, a local journalist active in the counterculture, distributed leaflets regarding the situation to underground newspapers, including the Berkeley Barb, the Los Angeles Free Press and the East Village Other.[48] The Berkeley Barb was the first to cover the bust,[55] placing a story on its front page in February 1967.[38] Love led efforts to boycott the band.[47] In July, he took out a one-page ad in the Los Angeles Free Press which related the story, called for readers to destroy their Lovin' Spoonful records and avoid their concerts and urged female fans to not have sex with the band.[56][57][58]

By early 1967, the Lovin' Spoonful's shows on the West Coast were sometimes picketed by members of the counterculture. Protesters carried signs which accused the band of being "finks" and traitors to the movement, and they encouraged fans to boycott the band and burn their records.[59] Some authors suggest the bust and its fallout was the reason for the Lovin' Spoonful's absence from the Monterey International Pop Festival,[12][60][61] a music festival held in June 1967 on California's Central Coast.[12][nb 6] The music festival signalled a major geographical shift in America's pop music scene,[12] and the author Jon Savage suggests the Lovin' Spoonful's treatment by the counterculture stemmed from the broader inter-city rivalries between the West and East Coast amid the pop scene's transition.[11]

Among the Lovin' Spoonful's defenders was Ralph J. Gleason, the co-founder of the San Francisco-based rock magazine Rolling Stone.[64] Gleason wrote a piece regarding the bust in the magazine's second issue, dated November 1967,[63] in which he argued that the reaction against the band was worse than Yanovsky and Boone's decision to cooperate.[65] He concluded that the band's treatment was, "the biggest underground cancer in the rock scene",[63][66] and he encouraged readers to continue buying the band's records.[67][nb 7]

Intra-band tensions[edit]

The public revelations regarding Boone and Yanovsky's cooperation generated tensions within the band.[68] According to Boone, both Sebastian and Butler were generally ignorant of the bust's details until the underground press began reporting on it. The pair were enthusiastic about the emerging hippie scene, and Boone suggests that "it had to be hard to know they were being associated in the minds of the movement with finks".[68] In late 1966, while they continued to feel stress over their situation, Boone and Yanovsky collaborated for the first time on a composition.[69] The pair hoped their song, "The Dance of Pain and Pleasure", could serve as catharsis, but it was poorly received by their bandmates and Jacobsen, and it was never recorded or developed further.[70]

In the months after the bust, Yanovsky began drinking more heavily, and his behavior both on- and off-stage became increasingly erratic.[71][72] He often disagreed with the band's creative direction, which was being increasingly dictated by Sebastian.[22][73] Boone recalled that the relationship between the Sebastian and Yanovsky became stilted due to the latter's tendency towards rebelling rather than communicating his concerns directly.[74][nb 8] Yanovsky remembered tensions culminating after a flight back to New York, when he expressed to Sebastian that "his songwriting [had] really gone down the toilet", and that it was time for him to return to the "'risk element'" which characterized his earlier writing.[77] In May 1967, Sebastian convened a band meeting in which he issued an ultimatum that he would leave the group unless Yanovsky was fired.[72] In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired,[78] and he last performed with the group on June 24, 1967.[79][80][nb 9]

The Lovin' Spoonful saw diminished commercial success in 1967,[22] and they disbanded in 1968.[24] After Yanovsky's departure, only one of the band's singles entered the American top 40.[56] Boone and the author Hank Bordowitz later said that the counterculture's boycott hurt the band's commercial performance,[82][83] Bordowitz suggesting that the band's loss of "counterculture credibility" effectively ended their commercial viability.[83] The author Richie Unterberger counters that the effects of the boycott have likely been overestimated, since "most of the people who bought Spoonful records were average teenage Americans, not hippies".[84] He instead connects the band's commercial struggles to the expanding popularity of the genre psychedelia, to which folk-rock acts struggled to transition, further contending that their creative struggles likely stemmed from the bust and the resulting "spiralling personal difficulties".[22] Richard Goldstein, a music critic who was among band's earliest champions,[85] wrote at the time of Yanovsky's departure that it marked the end of the group "as we knew them".[86] He added that though the band still possessed their "greatest asset" in Sebastian's songwriting, it was Yanovsky who "brought the Spoonful home in living color".[86] The singer Judy Henske – who was married to Yanovsky's replacement in the band, Jerry Yester – offered a similar assessment, saying in retrospect that, "The Lovin' Spoonful without Zalman was nothing".[87]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ In attendance at the Longshoreman's show were members of the Grateful Dead,[23] an acoustic-folk group, who were inspired by the Lovin' Spoonful's performance to similarly "go electric" in their style.[24]
  2. ^ Boone admitted in his autobiography that he was driving both high and drunk, but he did not recall speeding or driving unusually.[28] Selvin instead writes the pair drew the attention of police after they made "an illegal, high-speed U-turn".[26]
  3. ^ The country singer Johnny Cash was arrested in October 1965 for attempting to smuggle amphetamines and sedatives across the Mexico–United States border,[40] but his pills were prescription narcotics and not illicit.[41]
  4. ^ Facing risk of deportation after three separate drug arrests in late 1966, Bruce Palmer, the bassist of the Los Angeles-based rock band Buffalo Springfield, voluntarily departed to Canada in January 1967.[45] Palmer's absence led to difficulties for the group, which disbanded in 1968.[46]
  5. ^ Boone and the author Joel Selvin each write Love did not spend any time in jail for the offense,[48][51] but Unterberger writes Love served a "brief" jail sentence.[22]
  6. ^ Cass Elliot, a long-time friend of the band and the one who introduced Sebastian and Yanovsky to one another,[62] recalled that some at the festival urged her to stop talking with Yanovsky.[63] She dismissed the suggestion contemporaneously as "ridiculous", adding that he remained "one of [her] best friends".[63]
  7. ^ Some authors, including Gary Pig Gold, suggest that Rolling Stone led the boycott of the Lovin' Spoonful, but Gleason's piece defending the band was the only coverage the magazine devoted to the situation.[66]
  8. ^ Yanvosky especially disliked Sebastian's song "Darling Be Home Soon".[75][76] When the band appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1967 to promote its release as a single, Yanovsky attached a rubber-toad figurine to his guitar, and he mugged for the camera.[22][75] The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.[75]
  9. ^ Boone's only songwriting contribution to the Lovin' Spoonful's 1967 album Everything Playing was "Forever", an instrumental he wrote while reflecting on the bust and Yanovsky's firing.[81]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Matijas-Mecca 2020, p. 148.
  2. ^ a b c d Gieringer, Dale H. (June 1999). "The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California". Contemporary Drug Problems. 26 (2): 237–288. doi:10.1177/009145099902600204.
  3. ^ May 2002, pp. 188–189.
  4. ^ Savage 2015, p. 517.
  5. ^ O'Grady, Terence J. (1979). "A Rock Retrospective". Music Educators Journal. 66 (4): 34–107. doi:10.2307/3395757. ISSN 0027-4321. JSTOR 3395757. S2CID 192057162.
  6. ^ "The Lovin' Spoonful Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  7. ^ Richards, Sam (September 2021). Bonner, Michael (ed.). "The Making of ... Summer in the City by The Lovin' Spoonful". UNCUT. No. 292. pp. 92–94 – via the Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Unterberger 2002, pp. 123–125, 134.
  9. ^ Helander 1999, p. 236.
  10. ^ Unterberger 2002, pp. 38–39, 69.
  11. ^ a b c d Savage 2015, p. 518.
  12. ^ a b c d e Fletcher 2009, p. 230.
  13. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 81–84, 102–104.
  14. ^ Jackson 2015, p. xvii.
  15. ^ Eskow, Gary (August 1, 2008). "Classic Tracks: The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic"". Mix. Archived from the original on May 20, 2022.
  16. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 81–82.
  17. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 81–82: (early August 1965); Paul, Ivan (July 31, 1965). "Around Town". San Francisco Examiner. p. 15 – via Newspapers.com.: (late July 1965).
  18. ^ a b Gleason, Ralph J. (May 15, 1966). "'Spoonful' Fans Kept Following". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 37 – via Newspapers.com. Last fall the Spoonful appeared at Mother's on Broadway for two weeks and later at the hungry i. They also played the first of the really successful rock 'n roll dances here presented by The Family Dog. It was those productions which set the pattern for the whole dancing scene that exists now.
  19. ^ Unterberger 2002, p. 38.
  20. ^ a b Jackson 2015, pp. 240–243.
  21. ^ Selvin 1995, pp. 35–36.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Unterberger 2003, p. 61.
  23. ^ Jackson 2015, pp. 244–245.
  24. ^ a b Miles 2009, p. 232.
  25. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 121–122.
  26. ^ a b c d Selvin 1995, p. 76.
  27. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 121–126.
  28. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 125.
  29. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 127–128.
  30. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 129–130.
  31. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 130, 173.
  32. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 130.
  33. ^ Elwood, Philip (May 23, 1966). "Lovin' Spoonful Just Do Skirt Disaster at Berkeley". San Francisco Examiner. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 130–131.
  35. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 131–132.
  36. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 132.
  37. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 135–137.
  38. ^ a b c d Silenus (February 17, 1967). "The Lovin' Lid". Berkeley Barb. pp. 1, 3. JSTOR 28033116 – via JSTOR.
  39. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 134.
  40. ^ Trent, Sydney (May 16, 2021). "White supremacists attacked Johnny Cash for marrying a 'Negro' woman. But was his first wife Black?". Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 31, 2023.
  41. ^ a b Boone & Moss 2014, p. 133.
  42. ^ Hitchens 2012, p. 102.
  43. ^ Shea & Rodriguez 2007, p. 67.
  44. ^
  45. ^ Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 144–145, 159–162.
  46. ^ Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 160, 240: "... Bruce cooled his heels in Canada for the next four months while the Springfield floundered through a series of personnel shuffles, abandoned recording sessions, and missed opportunities. The band never fully recovered from the loss of an integral member at such a critical juncture. 'When we started having the problems with Bruce and his immigration papers,' offers Richie [Furay], 'that's when the whole thing fell apart.' ... [T]he band broke up [in] 1968 ..."
  47. ^ a b Reising, Russell (2001). "The Secret Lives of Objects; the Secret Stories of Rock and Roll: Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Seattle's Experience Music Project". American Quarterly. 53 (3): 489–510. ISSN 0003-0678. JSTOR 30041902 – via JSTOR. ... [The Lovin' Spoonful] cooperated with drug busts to save their own skins ... Bill Love [was] their drug source whose girlfriend got busted as a result of the Spoonful's ratting, [and he] mounted a campaign urging disk jockeys not to play their records, for fans to avoid their concerts, and even for 'groupies not to ball them.'
  48. ^ a b c Boone & Moss 2014, p. 171.
  49. ^ Anon. (July 7–13, 1967). "Lovin' Lidful May Uncop". Berkeley Barb. p. 3. JSTOR 28033130 – via JSTOR.
  50. ^ Wiig, Howard C. (December 29, 1967 – January 4, 1968). "Spoonful Retraction Raises Hope". Berkeley Barb. p. 3. JSTOR 28033153 – via JSTOR.
  51. ^ Selvin 1995, p. 77.
  52. ^ Fletcher 2009, pp. 230–231.
  53. ^ Anon. (April 1967). "Lovin' Spoonful Scandal". Mojo Navigator. No. 14. p. 25. A couple months ago, photocopies of a page compiled from an official court transcript ... began appearing in public places around the city. Immediately all manner of gossip began spreading.
  54. ^ Goldstein, Richard (March 23, 1967). "The Psychedelic Yenta Strikes Again!". The Village Voice. pp. 32, 34 – via Rock's Backpages. In San Francisco, where the alleged treason took place, one shopkeeper hung a copy of the Hums [of the Lovin' Spoonful] album near a sign which read 'These men are informers.' Also displayed was a supposed court transcript, which cited the two [Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone] and the group's manager for aiding the cops.
  55. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 172.
  56. ^ a b Shea 2023, p. 245.
  57. ^ "Letters: Spoonful". Los Angeles Free Press. August 11, 1967. p. 12. JSTOR 28039676 – via JSTOR. Editor's note: The full page ad on the Spoonful was paid for by the person who wound up in jail as a result of the whole mess. The Free Press gave him the opportunity to air his grievance and proposals, as it would do with any dissenting viewpoint, but was not by that act endorsing any demonstrations.
  58. ^ The Defense Fund and Freedom League of the Brotherhood of Smoke (July 28, 1967). "Do You Believe in Magic?". Los Angeles Free Press. p. 8. JSTOR 28039674 – via JSTOR.
  59. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 178–180.
  60. ^ Lydon, Michael (September 22, 2009). "Monterey Pop: The First Rock Festival". The Criterion Collection. Originally written in 1967 for Newsweek magazine, whose editors reduced it from 43 to 10 paragraphs. Printed in full in the book Flashbacks (2003; ISBN 978-0-415-96644-3).
  61. ^ Brodey, Jim (July 28, 1967). "Singing, Spoonful Style". Los Angeles Free Press. p. 11. JSTOR 28039674 – via JSTOR. The Spoonful was to have been at the Pop Festival. They were advertised as being there; they weren't. The Festival grounds are located within a 150 miles radius of the San Francisco Court's jurisdiction. If the Spoonful enter that 150-mile radius circle, they can be subpoenaed.
  62. ^ Unterberger 2002, p. 75.
  63. ^ a b c d Gleason, Ralph J. (November 23, 1967). "Perspectives: Like Zally, We Are All Victims". Rolling Stone. p. 9.
  64. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 187–188.
  65. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 187–189.
  66. ^ a b Bishop, Moe (August 18, 2011). "Zal Yanovsky". Vice. Archived from the original on October 22, 2023.
  67. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 188.
  68. ^ a b Boone & Moss 2014, p. 173.
  69. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 166.
  70. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 166–167.
  71. ^ Fletcher 2009, p. 231.
  72. ^ a b Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 173–175.
  73. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 165.
  74. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 165–166.
  75. ^ a b c Boone & Moss 2014, p. 170.
  76. ^ Myers 2017, p. 74.
  77. ^ Hanly, Francis (director) (September 4, 1998). "California Dreamin'". Rock Family Trees. Season 2. Episode 1. Event occurs at 31:40–32:00. BBC Television.
  78. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 175–176.
  79. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 176.
  80. ^ Rees & Crampton 1991, p. 317.
  81. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 126, 184–185.
  82. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 178–180, 187–189.
  83. ^ a b Bordowitz 2011, chap. 6.
  84. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "The Lovin' Spoonful biography". AllMusic. Archived from the original on May 14, 2023. Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  85. ^ Heylin 2007, p. 205.
  86. ^ a b Goldstein, Richard (July 27, 1967). "Pop Eye: A Requiem for the Scene?". The Village Voice. pp. 13–14, 20, 23 – via Google Books. In Memoriam – the Lovin' Spoonful, as we knew them. Zal Yanovsky quit to go it solo after some nasty in-squabbles among group members. Reportedly, the roots of the split are only incidentally concerned with 'the bust.' Replacing Zal is Jerry Yester from the Association. Though Sebastian's material remains the group's greatest asset, Zally brought the Spoonful home in living color.
  87. ^ Unterberger 2002, p. 174.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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