Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Lovin' Spoonful: Summer in the City.


"Summer in the City" is the title of a song recorded by The Lovin' Spoonful, written by Mark Sebastian (brother of John Sebastian) and Steve Boone. It came from their album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful and it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1966.

This song's prominent descending bass-line was the inspiration for Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses,"."Summer in the City" maybe inspiration for several other songs including:

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" (Led Zeppelin)
"Temptation Eyes" (The Grass Roots)
"25 or 6 to 4" (Chicago)
"Bert's Blues" (Donovan)
"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (Beatles)
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Beatles)
"Dear Prudence" (Beatles)
"Brain Stew" (Green Day)
"Sunny Afternoon"(Kinks)




Studio album by The Lovin' Spoonful
Released: November, 1966
Recorded: 1966 at Bell Sound Studios and Columbia Studios, New York, NY and in Los Angeles, CA
Genre: Folk rock
Length: 26:48 (original LP)
Label: Kama Sutra
Producer: Erik Jacobsen

4 comments:

Paul 2 said...

Wow, I never knew John was playing A "reverse key" Vox organ on this song.

One of The Summer of 1966 songs on So CA .AM radio it was all over "Boss Radio" 93 KHJ KFWB 98 and good old KRLA 1110.
Dawn do you remember what two films the Spoonfull did the music for?

Dawn said...

If I remember right, the band was to perform on the television show called, The Monkees.

Is one of the films.. You're a Big Boy Now, where The Lovin' Spoonful played the music for the soundtrack?

Paul 2 said...

Dawn the other was for the Woody Allen film "What's Up Tiger Lilly?

Dawn said...

Oh.. not really a Woody Allen fan. So, I would have never gotten it.