The Lovin' Spoonful - Night Owl Cafe, New York City, 2-1965

I must say, I'm tickled pink to post this, because I was sure no worthy live recordings of the Lovin' Spoonful in their prime existed. But, low and behold, there is this one.

Some musical acts from way back when got lucky with having good live recordings that survived and others did not. For instance, the Byrds with their five original members from 1964 to 1967 were extremely popular, with two Number One hits, yet there doesn't seem to be any surviving live recordings of them other than some TV appearances here and there. I thought that was the case with the Lovin' Spoonful too. I'd looked high and low, and didn't find anything, except for some TV appearances just like the Byrds.

However, the other day, I came across this. It's a soundboard recording from the band's early days, right around the time they signed a record contract. They played lots of concerts at the Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village in New York City, and for some reason just this one set was recorded and has survived. Only the first ten tracks here are from that show. That includes a couple of their well known songs, "Good Time Music" and "Didn't Want to Have to Do It," but no hits per se. Most of these songs are cover versions that they never put on record.

Since that recording is rather short, only 25 minutes in total, I decided to fill out the album with some other live recordings. I decided to include all the songs they played for the Ed Sullivan Show. They often just lip-synced to their TV appearances, but for the Ed Sullivan Show they actually played live. Plus, the Ed Sullivan Show has a YouTube page where they've uploaded excellent sound quality versions of all of these. I edited these so the applause from one track leads into the next, making all three appearances sound like one continuous performance.

It so happens that the Lovin' Spoonful made three appearances on the Ed Sullivan, all in 1967. That's a nice complement to the Night Owl Cafe performance, because it mostly contains hits from a bit later in their career. I considered including more performances from other TV shows, but there isn't much that sounds really good. For instance, the only versions of the band's 1966 Number One hit "Summer in the City" I could find were lip-synced.

I did a little research on the Night Owl Cafe. It turns out that this was almost officially released in 1999. But all the band members approved the release except for their main singer and songwriter John Sebastian. So the release was nixed, but it was leaked out as a bootleg. Apparently, this is the only good live recording from the 1960s that the band members know of.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 talk (Lovin' Spoonful)
02 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 (Lovin' Spoonful)
03 Good Time Music (Lovin' Spoonful)
04 My Gal (Lovin' Spoonful)
05 Didn't Want to Have to Do It (Lovin' Spoonful)
06 Almost Grown (Lovin' Spoonful)
07 Bring It with You When You Come (Lovin' Spoonful)
08 talk (Lovin' Spoonful)
09 Alley Oop (Lovin' Spoonful)
10 My Baby's Gone (Lovin' Spoonful)
11 Nashville Cats (Lovin' Spoonful)
12 Darlin' Be Home Soon (Lovin' Spoonful)
13 Bald Headed Lena (Lovin' Spoonful)
14 Daydream (Lovin' Spoonful)
15 Do You Believe in Magic (Lovin' Spoonful)
16 Only Pretty, What a Pity (Lovin' Spoonful)
17 She Is Still a Mystery (Lovin' Spoonful)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15229202/TLovnSpnful_1965_NghtOwlCfeNYC__2-1965_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from an appearance on the British TV show "Ready Steady Go" in 1966. I removed a big sign behind the band with the TV show name on it.