The Wild Honey Orchestra - Tribute to the Lovin' Spoonful, Alex Theatre, Glendale, CA, 2-29-2020

I've had a request to post more from the Wild Honey Orchestra (WHO), as well as a specific request to post the Lovin' Spoonful tribute show. So here it is.

I've posted two WHO concerts already. You can read more about this group in the write-ups to those. But, in short, it's a group of mostly Los Angeles based professional musicians who put on a concert once a year to benefit a charity. Generally, these musicians are members of bands that are successful enough for a career, but typically not really big name acts. Many of them tend to play these WHO concerts every year. If you compare the artist names for this concert with the other two WHO concerts I've posted, you'll see the vast majority played in all of them.

But this concert was a bit unusual, due to the presence of members of the Lovin' Spoonful, the band that was the focus on the tribute this year. There were four members of the band in the 1960s: John Sebastian, who was the lead singer and main songwriter, and Joe Butler, Steve Boone, and Zal Yanovsky (who was replaced by Jerry Yester before the end of the 1960s). This concert was as good of a reunion of the original band as one could hope for, with Sebastian, Butler and Boone participating. Both Yanovsky and Yester died in the years prior to the concert.

The Lovin' Spoonful did reform in the 1990s, and has played concerts ever since then. However, crucially, John Sebastian didn't take part, and he was the heart of the band. He did play with the others for one concert in 1979, for the Paul Simon movie "One Trick Pony," then again in 2000 for the band's induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But that's been it, with this exception of this concert.

Even better, the original band didn't just play a song or two. They had a big role in the concert, with Sebastian singing lots of songs. There are no concert recordings of the original band with Sebastian that I know of, other than a song here or there on TV shows, so we're very lucky a bootleg recording of this concert has survived. And the sound quality is excellent all the way through. The one downside is that this is generally only the songs, with very little of the banter between songs. There's only a few bits of banter, mostly comments by Sebastian.

The band had a fairly small recorded output, with just five albums, from 1965 to 1969. So a large portion of their songs were played here, including some rather obscure songs. Also, some songs from Sebastian's solo career were included, such as "Stories We Could Tell," "How Have You Been," and his Number One hit "Welcome Back."

There are a few performers here not seen on the two previous WHO concerts I've posted. For instance, Marshall Crenshaw, the duo of Marti Jones & Don Dixon, Dave Alvin, Peter Lewis from Moby Grape, and Peter Case. 

This concert is two hours and six minutes long.

01 Coffee Blues (John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
02 talk (John Sebastian)
03 Lovin' You (John Sebastian, Steve Boone & Joe Butler with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
04 talk (John Sebastian)
05 Full Measure (Joe Butler with John Sebastian & Steve Boone with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
06 Butchie's Tune (Dennis Diken & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
07 It's Not Time Now (Iain Matthews & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
08 Fishin' Blues (Eleni Mandell, John Sebastian & Elliot Easton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
09 Nashville Cats (Bill Lloyd & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
10 There She Is (Nick Guzman with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
11 Pow (John Easdale & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
12 Darlin' Companion (Bill Mumy & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
13 Money (Cindy Lee Berryhill with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
14 Rain on the Roof (Marshall Crenshaw with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
15 Coconut Grove (Thomas Walsh with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
16 Didn't Want Have to Do It (Mark Eitzel with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
17 You're a Big Boy Now (Skylar Gudasz, John Sebastian & Elliot Easton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
18 Respoken (Marti Jones & Don Dixon with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
19 Warm Baby (David Goodstein with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
20 Other Side to This (Peter Lewis with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
21 Summer in the City (Joe Butler, John Sebastian, Steve Boone & Mark Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
22 Welcome Back (John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
23 Lonely (John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
24 She's Still a Mystery (Darian Sahanaja & the Three O'Clock with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
25 Darlin' Be Home Soon (Rob Laufer with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
26 Six O'Clock (Wednesday Week with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
27 Never Goin' Back (Joe Butler with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
28 talk (John Sebastian)
29 You Baby (Claudia Lennear & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
30 Younger Girl (Steve Stanley with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
31 Stories We Could Tell (Carla Olson & John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
32 Younger Generation (Kathy McCarty with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
33 How Have You Been (Dead Rock West with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
34 Daydream (Micky Dolenz with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
35 Night Owl Blues (John Sebastian & Dave Alvin with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
36 talk (Peter Case)
37 Blues in the Bottle (Peter Case with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
38 Four Eyes (Peter Case & Carla Olson with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
39 Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind (Carnie Wilson & Rob Bonfiglio with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
40 You Didn't Have to Be So Nice (Susan Cowsill with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
41 Jug Band Music (John Sebastian with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
42 Do You Believe in Magic (John Sebastian, Steve Boone & Joe Butler with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
43 Daydream [Reprise] (John Sebastian, Joe Butler & Steve Boone with the Wild Honey Orchestra)

https://www.imagenetz.de/i3sa6

The cover is exactly from a promotional poster for the concert. All I did was crop out some parts at the top and the bottom that didn't contain much useful information.