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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 American folk-rock band the Lovin' Spoonful were arrested in San Francisco, California, for possessing one ounce (28 g) of marijuana. The Spoonful were at the height of their success, and Yanovsky, a Canadian, worried that a conviction would lead to his deportation and a breakup of the band. To avoid this eventuality, he and Boone cooperated with law enforcement, revealing their drug source to an undercover agent at a party a week after their initial arrest.

The Lovin' Spoonful were the first pop music act of the 1960s to be busted for possessing illegal drugs.[1] Boone and Yanovsky's drug source, Bill Loughborough, was arrested in September 1966. He initiated a campaign to boycott the band, the effectiveness of which is disputed by later commentators. By early 1967, Yanovsky and Boone's cooperation was reported by the West Coast's burgeoning underground rock press, souring the Spoonful's reputation within the counterculture and generating tensions within the band. Yanovsky's bandmates fired him in May 1967, and the band subsequently saw diminished commercial success. In January 1968, Loughborough was sentenced to three months in county jail followed by three years of probation. The Spoonful dissolved that June.

Background

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California and marijuana

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Main article: Cannabis in California

In 1913,[2] California became the first U.S. state to prohibit marijuana.[3] Hemp, a class of the drug, was used in the 19th century for medicinal purposes, but in the early 20th century, marijuana's image became increasingly linked with crime and a negative view of Mexican immigrants.[3] In the 1950s, as recreational use of the drug became more common, California's state government raised the minimum prison term for possessing it to a minimum of 1–10 years. Sale of the drug was punished more harshly, with a minimum prison term of 5–15 years, including a mandatory three years before parole eligibility.[2]

Arrests over marijuana in California rose from 140 per year in 1935 to 5,155 in 1960.[2] The 1960s counterculture accelerated the drug's use among California's youth;[2][4] arrests peaked in 1974 at 103,097, most of them felonies.[2]

The Lovin' Spoonful

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refer to adjacent text
The Lovin' Spoonful in a 1965 promotional photograph; clockwise from top left: Steve Boone, Joe Butler, Zal Yanovsky and John Sebastian

In 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful were one of the most successful pop music groups in the U.S.[5][6] The band, who started in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood in late 1964, mostly consisted of New Yorkers,[7] but their lead guitarist Zal Yanovsky was originally from Toronto, Canada.[8] In the band's first year of releasing music, their first four singles reached the Top Ten of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, two of which reached number two.[9] They recorded their fifth single, "Summer in the City", in March 1966, and it became their biggest hit when it topped the U.S. charts in August.[10]

The Spoonful were among the earliest popularizers folk rock, a genre which blended folk and rock music.[11][12] Folk rock emerged from the American folk music revival, which centered on Greenwich Village in the early 1960s.[13] By 1966, the American pop-music scene shifted towards cities on the West Coast, like San Francisco and Los Angeles,[14] and other early folk-rock acts, such as the Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas, located themselves there.[15] Amid the transition, the Spoonful remained based in New York City,[15] but their image and sound proved influential in the emerging San Francisco scene,[16][17] particularly in the city's Haight-Ashbury district, a center of the 1960s counterculture.[17]

The Spoonful visited San Francisco several times in the second half of 1965;[18] they played for two weeks in July and August 1965 at Mother's Nightclub,[19][20] which then advertised itself as the "world's first psychedelic nightclub",[21] and they appeared for a week in October at the hungry i,[22][23] one of the most prominent clubs in America's folk-music scene.[24] On October 24,[25] they headlined a dance party at the Longshoreman's Union Hall in the city's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood.[20][26] Organized by the concert-production collective Family Dog Productions, the event combined rock music with light shows and psychedelic drugs,[27] and it was among the earliest events of its kind in San Francisco;[28][16] Erik Jacobsen, the Spoonful's producer, reflected, "That whole idea of going and listening to music and getting high started there".[16][nb 1]

Bust and cooperation

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On May 20, 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful arrived in San Francisco for another tour of the West Coast.[34] That day, Yanovsky and Steve Boone, the band's bassist, attended a party in the city's Pacific Heights neighborhood at the home of Bill Loughborough.[35][nb 2] Loughborough managed the Committee, a San Francisco-based improv comedy group, and he met Boone and Yanovsky through a mutual acquaintance, Larry Hankin.[35][nb 3] Loughborough sold the pair a "lid" – contemporary West Coast slang for roughly one ounce (28 g) of marijuana.[43] Boone and Yanovsky left the party in their rental car and were pulled over by the police, who searched the vehicle and discovered one ounce of the drug.[43][44][45][nb 4]

Yanovsky and Boone were bailed out the morning after the bust and performed that night's scheduled show at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Barb ad pictured).

Boone and Yanovsky were arrested and spent the night in jail. Rich Chiaro, the band's road manager, bailed them out the following morning.[47] 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.[48] The band's two other members – John Sebastian and Joe Butler – were not immediately informed on the details of the bust;[49] Sebastian was in Los Angeles at the time, and he later recalled only being told it had happened several days later.[50] The band performed as scheduled on the evening of May 21 at the University of California, Berkeley's Greek Theatre,[51] playing for an hour in-front of 5,500 concertgoers.[52]

At a meeting with San Francisco police and the District Attorney, Yanovsky was threatened with deportation to Canada.[53] Yanovsky feared that, if he was deported, he would never be allowed to reenter the U.S.[45] Melvin Belli, an attorney whom Cavallo and Koppelman hired, 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.[54] 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.[55]

Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,[16] directing an undercover operative at a local party on May 25.[56][57] 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.[58]

Trial and sentencing

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Police initially arrested Loughborough's girlfriend,[36] Sandy Smith, but she was released without being charged.[35][59] His arrest followed in September 1966,[56] and preliminary hearings for his case began in early December.[14][56] Around that time, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's involvement as informants became more widespread on the West Coast, particularly in San Francisco.[14] In an attempt to quash the story, the band's management offered to pay for Loughborough's defense attorney[16] or to pay for his silence regarding the matter, options which he refused.[60][nb 5]

Loughborough was convicted on June 5, 1967, on two counts of the sale of marijuana.[37] In January 1968,[38] the Superior Court Judge Joseph Karesh sentenced him to three months in county jail followed by three years of probation.[39] Loughborough's motion for a new trial included affidavits signed by Boone, Yanovsky, Cavallo, Hankin and Smith, all of whom alleged that the prosecution's chief witness, a San Francisco police officer, perjured himself on the witness stand.[39] The judge denied the motion,[39] and Loughborough served his time in jail.[16] Loughborough reflected at the time: "The sentence was much less than I expected ... I got off lightly if you consider the implications".[39]

Counterculture reaction

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Boycott and picketing attempts

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By early 1967, the underground press circulated news of the bust and generally criticized Yanovsky and Boone for acting as informants.[16][62] Excerpts of the court transcript were photocopied and hung in public places across San Francisco.[63][64] Chester Anderson, a counter-cultural activist from Haight-Ashbury,[65] denounced the Spoonful in a broadside issued through the Communications Company (ComCo),[17] a publishing group he founded.[66] He distributed his leaflet to numerous underground newspapers, including the Berkeley Barb, the Los Angeles Free Press and the East Village Other.[60] Boone remembered the Berkeley Barb being the first to cover the bust;[67] the newspaper placed the story on its front page in February 1967.[56][nb 6]

Loughborough led efforts to boycott the Lovin' Spoonful.[36] In July 1967, he took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Free Press which related the story before urging readers to destroy their Spoonful records, skip their concerts and avoid having sex with members of the band.[69][70][71] The musician Cyril Jordan recalled hearing that Bill Graham, a prominent concert promoter in the San Francisco area, was asked to blacklist the Spoonful.[72] Some authors suggest the bust and its fallout was the reason for the band's absence from the Monterey International Pop Festival,[15][73][74] a music festival held in June 1967 on California's Central Coast.[15] The music festival signalled a major geographical shift in America's pop music scene,[15] and the author Jon Savage suggests the band's treatment by the counterculture stemmed from the broader inter-city rivalries between the West and East Coast amid the pop scene's transition.[14][nb 7]

Attending [their concert tonight], buying the records, or in any way passing the word around about the Spoonful's commercial activities, is supporting THE MAN. And making it possible for the same fucking thing to happen again, everywhere. ... The money taken in from this concert ... is going into the pockets of generals on Death's staff.[73]

– Jim Brodey, Los Angeles Free Press, July 1967

In his autobiography, Boone recalled the Spoonful's West Coast shows being picketed by members of the counterculture, who he says carried signs accusing the band of being "finks" and traitors to the movement.[77] In the same issue of the Free Press as Loughborough's ad, Jim Brodey, a New York-based counterculture writer,[78] encouraged readers to picket the Spoonful's July 28 concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and he called for the opening act, Simon & Garfunkel, to pull out of the show.[73] The concert was nearly sold out and no protest materialized.[79][80]

Defenders

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The biggest underground cancer in the rock scene this past year has been the Lovin' Spoonful situation. ... "Shove that hot lead up my ass and I'll name everybody," Lenny Bruce once said. That's reality. ... If what Zal and Steve did is a sin, then it is our sin, too. They are victims, just as the man who was fingered is a victim. Just as we are all victims. Do we REALLY want to be selling postcards of the hanging?[76]

– Ralph J. Gleason, Rolling Stone, November 1967

Among the Spoonful's defenders were the California-based music critics Ralph J. Gleason, Bill Kerby and Pete Johnson.[68][80][81] Kerby, who wrote for the Free Press, defended the band in the newspaper's August 4 issue, arguing that readers should instead save their vitriol for the "Establishment".[68] In the following week's issue, the newspaper's letters section featured five letters, all of which disparaged the boycott and picketing efforts.[69] Among the letter writers was Johnson, a critic for the The Los Angeles Times,[69] who wrote in another piece that week that those angry at the Spoonful had "[violated] the integrity of their ethic" by engaging in "McCarthy-like tactics", rather than in the "philosophy of love, flowers and freedom 'to do your thing.'"[80]

Gleason, a co-founder of the San Francisco-based rock magazine Rolling Stone, wrote a piece regarding the bust in the magazine's second issue, dated November 1967.[81][76] In his piece, he argued that the reaction against the Spoonful was worse than Yanovsky and Boone's decision to cooperate.[82] He concluded that the band's treatment was "the biggest underground cancer in the rock scene",[76][83] and he encouraged readers to continue buying the band's records.[84] Sebastian later said he thought Gleason's piece "set things right", but that it was published too late to have been influential.[85][nb 8]

Aftermath

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Intra-band tensions, Yanovsky fired

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The public revelations regarding Boone and Yanovsky's cooperation generated tensions within the band.[86] 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 writes "it had to be hard to know they were being associated in the minds of the movement with finks".[86]

Boone recalled the bust distracting him from his songwriting, leading to disillusionment from Sebastian, who was left to write nearly all of the band's music.[62][nb 9] In late 1966, while they continued to feel stress over their situation, Boone and Yanovsky collaborated for the first time on a composition.[88] The pair hoped their resultant 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.[89]

Sebastian remembered that the counterculture's reaction to the bust "shattered" Yanovsky's feelings regarding "the band, [the music, the business], and the generation of love".[90] In the months that followed, Yanovsky began drinking more heavily, and his behavior both on- and off-stage became increasingly erratic.[91][92] He often disagreed with the band's creative direction, which was being increasingly dictated by Sebastian.[16][93] Boone recalled that the relationship between Sebastian and Yanovsky became stilted due to the latter's tendency towards rebelling rather than communicating his concerns directly.[94][nb 10] 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.[97]

In May 1967, Sebastian convened a band meeting in which he issued an ultimatum that he would leave the group unless Yanovsky was fired.[92] In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired, though he also agreed to continue performing the rest of the band's scheduled dates.[98] He last performed with the Spoonful on June 24, 1967, at the Forest Hills Music Festival in New York.[99][100][nb 11]

Diminished commercial success

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The Lovin' Spoonful saw diminished commercial success in 1967,[16] and they disbanded in June 1968.[103] After Yanovsky's departure, only one of the band's singles entered the American top 40.[71] Richard Goldstein, a music critic who was among band's earliest champions,[104] wrote at the time of Yanovsky's departure that it marked the end of the group "as we knew them".[105] 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".[105] 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".[106]

Later authors sometimes identify the bust as the incident which shortened the Spoonful's career.[107] Boone and the author Hank Bordowitz later said that the counterculture's boycott hurt the band's commercial performance;[108][109] Bordowitz suggests that the band's loss of "counterculture credibility" effectively ended their commercial viability,[109] an opinion shared by Cyril Jordan, who said the incident "was the first time you saw how much power the underground had", and it "was the end of [the Spoonful]".[72] 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".[110] 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".[16]

Legacy

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Numerous jazz musicians were arrested in the 1950s for possessing illegal drugs – typically marijuana or heroin[111] – but Boone and Yanovsky's arrests marked the first time 1960s pop musicians were busted for doing so.[1][nb 12] Three weeks later, on June 10, 1966,[114] Donovan became the first British pop star to be arrested for possessing marijuana.[115][116] In the years that followed, numerous pop musicians were arrested for possessing marijuana or LSD,[117] more often in Britain than in the United States.[116] Boone suggests in retrospect that, owing to the novelty of the situation, the Spoonful's management had no plan in place on how to handle a drug bust.[113]

In the U.S., the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Buffalo Springfield were among the bands whose members were sometimes arrested for possessing drugs.[118] Multiple arrests forced Bruce Palmer, a Canadian member of Buffalo Springfield, to voluntarily depart to Canada in January 1967.[119][nb 13] The Grateful Dead struck a defiant tone in the press after two of their members were arrested in Haight-Ashbury in October 1967. The academic Nicholas G. Meriwether writes the reaction was instrumental in establishing the Dead's strong reputation within the counterculture, particularly after the Spoonful's situation had "served as a stark example of the pressure and peril of cooperating with the police".[17]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The Grateful Dead had performed as a jug band since their formation in May 1965,[29] but seeing the Spoonful's show on October 24 inspired them to similarly transition to amplified instruments.[30][31] Their first recording session with electric instruments was ten days later, on November 3.[32] That month, for their first photo session, they adopted similar clothing to the Spoonful.[33]
  2. ^ Later sources provide Bill's last name as Love,[35][36] but contemporary articles refer to him as Loughborough.[37][38][39] An article in the Berkeley Barb identifies him as "Bill (Will B. Love) Loughborough".[40]
  3. ^ Hankin was a member of the Committee since its founding in 1963, and he befriended the Spoonful after they saw his stand-up routine in a Greenwich Village coffeehouse.[41] They invited him to serve as an opening act on one of their tours,[41] and he contributed to their 1966 album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful.[42]
  4. ^ Boone admitted in his autobiography that he was driving both high and drunk, but he did not recall speeding or driving unusually.[46] The author Joel Selvin instead writes the pair drew the attention of police after making "an illegal, high-speed U-turn".[35]
  5. ^ Loughborough told the Berkeley Barb that Cavallo sent him US$2500 in one-hundred-dollar bills (equivalent to US$23,000 in 2023).[56][61]
  6. ^ Bill Kerby wrote in August 1967 that he first heard the story "[a]bout six months ago" on a Pacifica radio station.[68] Since then, he added, there had been "a car radio punch-off campaign in full gear ..."[68]
  7. ^ Cass Elliot, a long-time friend of the band and the one who introduced Sebastian and Yanovsky to one another,[75] recalled that some at the festival urged her to stop talking with Yanovsky.[76] She dismissed the suggestion contemporaneously as "ridiculous", adding that he remained "one of [her] best friends".[76]
  8. ^ Some authors, including Gary Pig Gold, suggest that Rolling Stone led the boycott of the Spoonful, but Gleason's piece defending the band was the only coverage the magazine devoted to the situation.[83]
  9. ^ Boone's only songwriting contribution to the Spoonful's 1967 album Everything Playing was "Forever", an instrumental he wrote while reflecting on the bust and Yanovsky's subsequent firing.[87]
  10. ^ Yanovsky especially disliked Sebastian's song "Darling Be Home Soon".[95][96] 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.[16][95] The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.[95]
  11. ^ In an interview held four days after he left the band, Yanovsky agreed with the interviewer's assessment that the Spoonful had done little of note after their tour of England,[101] held in April 1966, a month before the bust.[102]
  12. ^ Jazz musicians arrested in the 1950s included Art Pepper, Lester Young, Hampton Hawes, Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday.[111] The country singer Johnny Cash was arrested in October 1965 for attempting to smuggle amphetamines and sedatives across the Mexico–United States border,[112] but his pills were prescription narcotics and not illicit.[113]
  13. ^ Palmer returned to Buffalo Springfield months later, but, after he was arrested several more times, his bandmates fired him in January 1968.[120] His immigration issues led to difficulties for the group, which disbanded that May.[121]

References

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  1. ^ a b Matijas-Mecca 2020, p. 148.
  2. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b Rendon 2012, p. 122.
  4. ^ May 2002, pp. 188–189.
  5. ^ Savage 2015, p. 517.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Unterberger 2002, pp. 123–125.
  8. ^ Bunch 2017, p. 343.
  9. ^ "The Lovin' Spoonful Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Unterberger 2002, pp. 123–125, 134.
  12. ^ Helander 1999, p. 236.
  13. ^ Unterberger 2002, pp. 38–39, 69.
  14. ^ a b c d Savage 2015, p. 518.
  15. ^ a b c d e Fletcher 2009, p. 230.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Unterberger 2003, p. 61.
  17. ^ a b c d Meriwether, Nicholas G. (2023). "When the Dead Fought the Law: The Grateful Dead's 1967 Marijuana Arrest and its Legacies" (PDF). Proceedings of the Grateful Dead Studies Association. 3: 121–136. ISSN 2770-5358.
  18. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 81–84, 102–104.
  19. ^ 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).
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ McNally 2003, p. 86.
  22. ^ Wilson, Russ (October 21, 1965). "A 'Spoonful of Pain in Folk-Song". Oakland Tribune. p. 22-F – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Anon. (October 18, 1965). "Today's Lively Arts". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 34 – via Newspapers.com. The Lovin' Spoonful ... opening tonight for a one-week run at the hungry i.
  24. ^ Unterberger 2002, p. 38.
  25. ^ Gleason, Ralph J. (October 24, 1965). "State College Tunes Up for Jazz '65". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 19 – via Newspapers.com. The Lovin' Spoonful, Larry Hankin and the Charlatans play a dance concert tonight at the Longshore Hall sponsored by the Family Dog ...
  26. ^ Jackson 2015, pp. 240–243; Selvin 1995, pp. 35–36.
  27. ^ Gould 2007, p. 347.
  28. ^ Jackson 2015, pp. 240–243.
  29. ^ Jackson 2015, pp. 250–251.
  30. ^ Jackson 2015, pp. 244–245, 250–251.
  31. ^ Miles 2009, p. 232.
  32. ^ Jackson 2015, p. 251.
  33. ^ McNally 2003, p. 98.
  34. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 121–122.
  35. ^ a b c d e Selvin 1995, p. 76.
  36. ^ a b c 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. doi:10.1353/aq.2001.0027. 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.'
  37. ^ a b Anon. (July 7–13, 1967). "Lovin' Lidful May Uncop". Berkeley Barb. p. 3. JSTOR 28033130 – via JSTOR.
  38. ^ a b Wiig, Howard C. (December 29, 1967 – January 4, 1968). "Spoonful Retraction Raises Hope". Berkeley Barb. p. 3. JSTOR 28033153 – via JSTOR.
  39. ^ a b c d e Laurence, Leo E. (January 26 – February 1, 1968). "Spoons Victim Sentenced". Berkeley Barb. p. 7. JSTOR 28033157 – via JSTOR.
  40. ^ Anon. (May 26 – June 1, 1967). "Oh, My Yes! Come to the Kiss-In". Berkeley Barb. p. 1. JSTOR 28033125 – via JSTOR. Bill (Will B. Love) Loughborough, general manger of the Committee ...
  41. ^ a b Hankin 2024, pp. 60–67, 83–84.
  42. ^ Diken 2003: "Thanks to ... Larry Hankin on Jew's harp."
  43. ^ a b Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 121–126.
  44. ^ Willman, Chris (February 28, 2020). "John Sebastian Looks Back as Lovin' Spoonful Semi-Reforms: 'We Weren't Matinee Idols'". Variety. Archived from the original on February 29, 2020. [The police] stop [Yanovsky and Boone] and they've just bought an ounce of pot. Everything grew out of that — an ounce of pot that you can now buy around the corner in California.
  45. ^ a b Weller, Sheila (February 14, 2022). "Do You Believe in Magic? Groovy Memories with The Lovin' Spoonful". Next Avenue. Archived from the original on February 14, 2022. In 1966, Boone and Yanovsky were stopped in San Francisco for possession of an ounce of pot. Yanovsky was threatened with deportation if he didn't name his supplier, according to Sebastian, who added that Yanovsky cooperated with the police for fear of never being able to re-enter the U.S.
  46. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 125.
  47. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 127–128.
  48. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 129–130.
  49. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 130, 173.
  50. ^ Uhler, Steve (April 30, 2024). "At 80, John Sebastian Has Found a New Key". Next Avenue. Archived from the original on May 3, 2024.
  51. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 130.
  52. ^ Elwood, Philip (May 23, 1966). "Lovin' Spoonful Just Do Skirt Disaster at Berkeley". San Francisco Examiner. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com.
  53. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 130–131.
  54. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 129–132.
  55. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 132.
  56. ^ a b c d e Silenus (February 17, 1967). "The Lovin' Lid". Berkeley Barb. pp. 1, 3. JSTOR 28033116 – via JSTOR.
  57. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 135–137.
  58. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 134.
  59. ^ Silenus (February 25, 1967). "Sanfran Zig-zag: Spoons". Berkeley Barb. p. 5. JSTOR 28033117 – via JSTOR.
  60. ^ a b Boone & Moss 2014, p. 171.
  61. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  62. ^ a b Diken 2003.
  63. ^ 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.
  64. ^ 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.
  65. ^ Peck 1985, p. 46.
  66. ^ Peck 1985, pp. 46–48.
  67. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 172.
  68. ^ a b c d Kerby, Bill (August 4–10, 1967). "Why Waste Vitriol on Lovin' Spoonful? Establishment Provides Better Targets". Los Angeles Free Press. p. 17. JSTOR 28039675 – via JSTOR.
  69. ^ a b c "Letters: Spoonful". Los Angeles Free Press. August 11–17, 1967. p. 12. JSTOR 28039676 – via JSTOR.
  70. ^ The Defense Fund and Freedom League of the Brotherhood of Smoke (July 28 – August 3, 1967). "Do You Believe in Magic?". Los Angeles Free Press. p. 8. JSTOR 28039674 – via JSTOR.
  71. ^ a b Shea 2023, p. 245.
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  73. ^ a b c Brodey, Jim (July 28 – August 3, 1967). "Singing, Spoonful Style". Los Angeles Free Press. p. 11. JSTOR 28039674 – via JSTOR.
  74. ^ 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).
  75. ^ Unterberger 2002, p. 75.
  76. ^ a b c d e Gleason, Ralph J. (November 23, 1967). "Perspectives: Like Zally, We Are All Victims". Rolling Stone. p. 9.
  77. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 178–180.
  78. ^ Sturm, Nick. "Differing Freak Wonder". Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on March 29, 2024. Retrieved July 13, 2024.
  79. ^ Johnson, Pete (July 31, 1967). "2 N.Y. Pop Groups at Bowl". The Los Angeles Times. p. IV:21. Effects of the boycott were not in evidence. The Bowl was filled to near capacity and a planned picket line either never materialized or else was so small as to be invisible in the inward-streaming crowd.
  80. ^ a b c Johnson, Pete (August 12, 1967). "Boycott on Lovin' Spoonful". The Scranton Tribune. p. 10A.
  81. ^ a b Diken 2003; Boone & Moss 2014, pp. 187–188; Pollock 1984, p. 203.
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  93. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 165.
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  99. ^ Boone & Moss 2014, p. 176; Rees & Crampton 1991, p. 317.
  100. ^ Wilson, John S. (June 26, 1967). "Lovin' Spoonful at Forest Hills: Opening Festival Concert Is Last for Guitarist". The New York Times. p. 36 – via TimesMachine.
  101. ^ Anon. (November 1967). "Zal Yanovsky's Uncertain Future". Hit Parader. pp. 39–41 – via the Internet Archive. ... Zal Yanovsky, four days after his final appearance as a member of the Lovin' Spoonful ... HP: Ever since your trip to England there hasn't been anything very exciting happening with the Spoonful as a group. ... Were you beginning to feel stale? Did you want more activity? Zal: That's a pretty fair evaluation of it.
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  105. ^ 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.
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  107. ^ Unterberger, Richie (May 3, 2018). "The Lovin' Spoonful's Steve Boone Opens Up About the Infamous Pot Bust that Broke Up the Band". PleaseKillMe. Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. Retrieved August 13, 2024.
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  112. ^ 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.
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  115. ^ Shea & Rodriguez 2007, p. 67.
  116. ^ a b Shapiro & Glebbeek 1995, p. 357.
  117. ^
    • Matijas-Mecca 2020, pp. 146–148: (The Rolling Stones' Redlands bust in 1967);
    • Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 144–145, 159–162: (Buffalo Springfield's Bruce Palmer arrested three times from September 1966 to January 1967);
    • Doggett 2011, pp. 55, 73: (John Lennon and George Harrison's homes were raided for drugs in October 1968 and March 1969, respectively);
    • Shapiro & Glebbeek 1995, p. 357: (Donovan, Stones, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Stephen Stills, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix).
  118. ^ Shapiro & Glebbeek 1995, p. 357: (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane); Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 144–145, 159–162, 242–243: (Buffalo Springfield).
  119. ^ Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 144–145, 159–162.
  120. ^ Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 242–243.
  121. ^ Einarson & Furay 2004, pp. 160, 240, 255: "... 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 ... The final concert was set for ... May 5th [1968] ..."

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