Fact #131432
When:
Short story:
The Lovin' Spoonful release their debut single, Do You Believe In Magic?, in the USA. It will peak at No9.
Full article:
John Sebastian (Lovin' Spoonful) : The fourth song I wrote was Do You Believe In Magic? I had this idea that if I electrified an autoharp, I would come up with an instrument that nobody else on the rock scene was playing. I put a ukulele contact microphone on the back of the autoharp and realized a shuffle was something that would sound good.
The instrument dictates that you write in C. There's so many things about those first few tunes that came out of necessity. It's like it says in the book If They Asked Me, I Could Write A Song – great songs are often inspired by great need.
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) : Do You Believe In Magic? was very big when I was making the transition from jazz fan to pop fan. This always puts me in a good mood. John Sebastian is incredibly underrated. He was a fine songwriter and a great singer. These days, he's kind of a forgotten man. I guess what did him in was that song Daydream, which people got really sick of and typified The Lovin' Spoonful as sugary, good-timey music. But it wasn't typical of his work at all. There's some great music on those records. The lyrics on this are all about youth and optimism and it was probably one of the first records that celebrated rock 'n' roll for itself, pulled back and looked at what was going on culturally.
John Sebastian : the Spoonful was kind of an unusual situation. We were a group of guys who had had experience as rock 'n' rollers, and as folk musicians and as folk-music accompanists . . . particularly, Zally, and I had done that job for, you know, a lot of different people. And it was a band that had two fingerpickers in it. Two guys that played with thumb picks. There were a lot of little oddities that just didn't get repeated again, because rock 'n' roll moved on, and, you know, I think the accentuation went to the "rock" rather than to the "roll," and, I think, probably, we were more heavily into the "roll" part of it.
(Source : not known)
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The instrument dictates that you write in C. There's so many things about those first few tunes that came out of necessity. It's like it says in the book If They Asked Me, I Could Write A Song – great songs are often inspired by great need.
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) : Do You Believe In Magic? was very big when I was making the transition from jazz fan to pop fan. This always puts me in a good mood. John Sebastian is incredibly underrated. He was a fine songwriter and a great singer. These days, he's kind of a forgotten man. I guess what did him in was that song Daydream, which people got really sick of and typified The Lovin' Spoonful as sugary, good-timey music. But it wasn't typical of his work at all. There's some great music on those records. The lyrics on this are all about youth and optimism and it was probably one of the first records that celebrated rock 'n' roll for itself, pulled back and looked at what was going on culturally.
John Sebastian : the Spoonful was kind of an unusual situation. We were a group of guys who had had experience as rock 'n' rollers, and as folk musicians and as folk-music accompanists . . . particularly, Zally, and I had done that job for, you know, a lot of different people. And it was a band that had two fingerpickers in it. Two guys that played with thumb picks. There were a lot of little oddities that just didn't get repeated again, because rock 'n' roll moved on, and, you know, I think the accentuation went to the "rock" rather than to the "roll," and, I think, probably, we were more heavily into the "roll" part of it.
(Source : not known)