I’m getting tired of seeing the classic rock acts. They show up every summer, playing the same hits, going just makes me feel old. I’ve seen it all before.

But not the Zombies.

They were more like shooting stars, they didn’t have a dominant arc like the acts populating the sheds. And I’d consider them irrelevant except their hits were so iconic and when they reformed Cliff Burnstein told me they were excellent.

So I was interested.

You could barely get there. I-10 was backed up all the way to 20th Street. When you approached downtown it was gridlock. I ended up parking at a friend’s house miles away and walking. And despite being told by the promoter that the band would begin at 8:30, just after getting our wristbands, just after walking onto the expanse of boards that serves as the show space, they hit the stage and started to sing “I Love You.”

AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY!

You might be scratching your head, believing you don’t know it, but the truth is you do, assuming you’re a baby boomer. The U.S. hit wasn’t by the Zombies, but by one hit wonder People!

And elation was spontaneous. Not only was the band playing one of my favorite songs, they were good! Colin Blunstone still had his voice, Rod Argent was tickling the electric ivories and I was brought right back to Ilene Kramer’s bat mitzvah party at Hillandale Country Club.

Actually, back then they still called it a BAS mitzvah. The Valiants were playing, it was a dark February afternoon. And I can still vividly remember them singing “She’s Not There,” which is equally black and mysterious.

Yup, long before deejays ruled the party circuit, bands of teenagers, usually high school students, played the hits of the day that our parents were unfamiliar with but we knew by heart.

Just like the audience in attendance was unfamiliar and were busy talking.

Free shows… Most oldsters won’t go, they need to be treated well, the youngsters attend to be part of the scene. That’s the essence of the millennials… I was there, let me tell you about MY experience. Whereas we baby boomers sat on chairs in rapt attention as our heroes played their hits.

And stunningly, these kids did know the hits!

But it was long before the Zombies played another.

They’d taken the stage early in order to play longer. There was a hard curfew. This flummoxed me. Usually bands, especially older acts at free or soft ticket shows, want to get on and get off, it’s about the check. But the Zombies were giving a performance. With Rod Argent and sometimes Colin Blunstone narrating the whole affair. This did break the mood, I wanted to believe it was still the midsixties, at first I was too far away to see the lines in their faces, but I give credit to them for having no airs.

And then they played “Time Of The Season”…

Credit Al Kooper for rescuing it. But what’s strange about this hit is its endurance. And its timeless quality. Sure, it was a hit way back when, but it didn’t sound like anything else then and there’s still nothing else that sounds like it. That’s what makes the Zombies hits so iconic, that they’re sui generis.

But when they followed it up soon thereafter with “Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There,” where were they going to go next?

“Hold Your Head Up.”

Come on, if you were alive in 1972, you’re familiar with this Argent hit. And sure, Russ Ballard was not there to sing it, but Colin’s voice with its unique timbre cast a spell nonetheless, and Rod and bassist Jim Rodford were there on the original.

And they did an Alan Parsons cut Colin sang and then they played…

“God Gave Rock and Roll to You.”

Funny track. A lame follow-up to “Hold Your Head Up” from Argent’s fourth album, “In Deep,” with time the song has marinated and gained new life, especially after Kiss’s 1991 cover for “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.”

If you wanna be a singer or play guitar
Man you’ve gotta sweat or you won’t get far

We all sang and we all learned to play guitar! It was a mania driven by the Beatles and their British compatriots. We were infected the same way you are with your smartphone. We lined up at the record store instead of the Apple Store. And we might not have been able to take our records on the run, but we did have our transistors, we were never without our music.

And if you’re young then you’ll never grow old
Music can make your dreams unfold

There isn’t a baby boomer alive who believes he’s over forty five. Most still feel they’re teenagers. And what’s kept us this way is the music, which is truly the soundtrack to our lives. The music inspired us, made us who we are, rode shotgun through our trials and tribulations. Sure, today’s athletes listen to their favorites before the game, before running the course, but we invented this paradigm, we discovered and then harnessed the power of rock and roll.

And then so did the corporations. Who still use it to sell useless products to the unknowing.

But once upon a time it was not this way. It was all a lark. The musicians were finding their way, having fun, and no one expected it to last forever. It’d be as if they only made the iPhone for two years and then forgot about it. But it turns out the productions were so good that they lasted.

So, you’ve got aged hippies traveling to the Santa Monica Pier to bond with what once was, finding out it still exists.

I couldn’t help throwing my hands in the air, singing with my head lifted to the heavens. I didn’t care that the later generations saw it all as grist for the mill, that they thought they were their own heroes. Because as Bowie sang, you can be a hero for a day, but the Zombies’ music…it’s FOREVER!

They were the Pixar of their day, their first seven singles hit the “Billboard” Top Ten back when that meant something.

But Steve Boone believes, despite being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Lovin’ Spoonful don’t get any respect.

Musicians… The audience adores them, the businessmen deplore them, but without their tunes the engine grinds to a halt.

But the truth is, if a musician were not, he’d have a hard time getting a job at a 7/11, because he wouldn’t be able to show up on time. The band breaks up and drummer Joe Butler ends up driving a cab, not decades later, but almost immediately.

It was a different era. Sure, there were records, but live bands ruled. We had to get out of the house to get oiled up, blow off steam and meet the opposite sex, and this happened at clubs with bands. Which is where Steve Boone started out, before the Beatles, playing bass with the Kingsmen. Oh, not the Portland band with the “Louie Louie” hit, just another Hamptons act that covered the R&B hits of the day. Boone would have you believe if it hadn’t been for a car accident, he’d have had a career in the military. If he hadn’t gone into NYC to retrieve his motorcycle, he’d have ended up an engineer, even though he never attended a day of college

Yup, that’s a musician, a delusional dreamer. Yup, if they weren’t on stage, they’d be a doctor. Right.

You’ve got to read this book because of the endless run of bad judgment employed by Mr. Boone. Sure, he made it, truly, but that only lasted a handful of years, not a whole hell of a lot longer than the run of PSY, and then he was broke and running dope and…

So he meets John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky and they give it six months to make it with their manager Bob Cavallo, then they’re gonna break up and do something different. Yup, the Lovin’ Spoonful was a lark, in an endless string, Sebastian and Yanovsky were looking for traction, and if their new combination of jug band music and rock and roll didn’t work, they’d come up with something else.

Yup, the same Bob Cavallo who only recently stepped down as majordomo of Disney’s Hollywood Records. The names keep popping up. Like Charley Koppelman before he was Charles. Boone’s got no idea where the money went, but he’s convinced without Koppelman and his partner Don Rubin the band would have never made it. The duo got the band signed to seemingly the only label they knew, Kama Sutra, which was distributed by MGM, which left the act so many steps from the money they never got any. But Charles and Don had relationships. Their label could get them on the radio. And the band had an immediate hit with “Do You Believe In Magic.”

And Boone is a treasure trove of what ifs. What if they’d followed up “Summer In The City” with another rocker, what if they’d broken just a couple of years later and made a definitive album statement, what if he’d taken Nat Weiss up on his offer to produce James Taylor…

Then what? He wouldn’t have been busted multiple times, gotten married to four different women and would be in the pantheon with the Beatles?

There’s even an unironic inclusion of a letter from Sebastian complaining that Boone and drummer Joe Butler were gonna go back out on the road in the nineties as the Spoonful without him and Yanovsky. Sure, it was a band, but without Sebastian there’d be no success.

Then again, John B. Sebastian was never as successful without them. But was this because his solo album was caught up in a war between MGM and Warner and was delayed a year, never mind ultimately released by both?

Yup, bands have a weird alchemy, kick a seemingly insignificant member out and you kill the spark. Once Yanovsky was history, so was the Spoonful’s run. And once Erik Jacobsen was thrown over as the producer, the hits dried up. Proving once again success in music is all about relationships and accidents.

Today everybody’s so savvy, believing by being knowledgeable they can will success. But it’d be better to burn Don Passman’s book and ply the streets, conversing with every player you bump into. But back then players were plentiful and music ruled the world.

But one thing hasn’t changed, despite recording being dominated by international corporations, music is a haven of hustlers, and if you’ve got none on your team, your band’s a nonstarter.

So the band breaks up. And in addition to having no cash, his Ferrari impounded and disappearing after hanging with a bad element, the IRS putting a lien on his royalties, Boone goes to the islands and buys a sailboat.

Which he doesn’t bother to have checked out. So it leaks. And eventually sinks when sailed to South America with his eventual co-owners, a pair of drug dealers.

And then he follows a bisexual singer to Baltimore where he takes over a recording studio unaware of its unpaid bills and gets evicted from his space and puts it on a barge which soon sinks, along with Lowell George’s demos.

We’ve been inundated with fairy tales, we’re made to believe things work out. But time and again Boone gets himself into situations with bad endings. Proving once again if you take risks, if you flaunt the law, your time is gonna come.

He gets hooked on heroin. Helps undercover cops a second time and ends up marrying a bandmate’s three decades younger daughter. Huh?

And you wonder why rock stars do irrational things and lose all their money…it’s in their DNA! You finished college and believe the world owes you success in a pair of years, where those who do break through have no roadmap, they’re just lifers plucking the strings, getting high and laid and rarely thinking about tomorrow.

I wasn’t gonna read this book. But Boone still means something in my mind, he was there at the epicenter, the creation of iconic songs that do get their due contrary to his belief, but I agree should be exalted a bit more. Furthermore, their hits are some of the few that I all like. Yup, come on, most bands, even your favorites, succeed with a few clunkers, but not the Spoonful. Even their minor tracks are classics. I love “Six O’Clock,” and “Darling Be Home Soon” is a stone cold smash, just shy of “Yesterday.”

So I’m thumbing through, skipping the growing up part, going straight to the heart of the matter, and when Boone starts talking about turning down Phil Spector and Elektra in favor of shysters, I’m hooked. Because I was there, on the other end of the enterprise, with these songs coming out of the speaker.

They’re working so much they don’t know which end is up. Limit testers die. And only Joe Butler gets laid on a regular basis. Yup, you can be in a band but you’ve still got to have game.

And when it’s over to watch Boone bumble through life is both horrifying and riveting. Because this is how it is for so many people. This isn’t college graduates with careers with a few bumps in their lives, Boone’s life is almost completely bumps.

And then I had to go back and read from the beginning, I couldn’t put this book down until I finished it.

And Tommy James’s book was better, but too often rock bios are sanitized, or so poorly written as to be unreadable. And I was marveling at how well this book was written until I realized Boone had a co-writer.

So…

If you don’t know the Spoonful, don’t bother. But if you do, do like me. Start with the band searching for a label. And damn if you won’t be unable to put the damn thing down. Because this is the life we thought we wanted. But reading the book you realize you don’t. And that there are no miracles. Everybody needs to eat. And when the royalties dry up it doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been, you’ve either got to borrow money or bend the law or both, which is what Boone did.

People send me these books all the time and I skim them and toss them. But not “Hotter Than A Match Head, Life On The Run With The Lovin’ Spoonful,” because of those songs.

Do you believe in magic?

I certainly do.

But not as much as John Sebastian, Zal Yanovsky, Joe Butler and Steve Boone. They sacrificed everything to their vision with no safety net. They made it, however briefly. The tracks live on, but tracks don’t make a life, the ride doesn’t go on forever, at some point everybody’s forced to leave the amusement park and enter the real world, and that can be awfully hard.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Then read this book first. If it doesn’t scare you away from a life playing music, go for it. But please, STAY OUT OF JAIL!

Steve Boone website

Hotter Than a Match Head: My Life on the Run with The LovinÂ’ Spoonful

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

This was a number two hit for Hugo Montenegro back in 1968, it was a cover of the original theme from the flick done by Ennio Morricone.

Yes, it’s strange, but the sixties were full of instrumental hits, and when this broke most people had no idea who Clint Eastwood was, it was only after this that we started to hear about spaghetti westerns, Clint didn’t break through big in American films until the seventies, so this certainly wasn’t a hit on his coattails.

Many boomers can whistle the riff, just ask them!

NO MATTER WHAT SHAPE (YOUR STOMACH’S IN)

The original number three hit was by the T-Bones, who ultimately morphed into Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. Sure, it became ubiquitous as the soundtrack to that Alka-Seltzer commercial, but that does not mean we loved it any less, it’s HOOKY!

LOVE IS BLUE

This one went to number one, in the iteration by French composer Paul Mauriat. Yes, a Frenchman had a number one! Baby boomers loved this, despite it being the antithesis of the youth sound prevalent 1967, because a hit is a hit, you can’t deny it.

CLASSICAL GAS

Mason Williams was a writer for the Smothers Brothers’ TV show, but he recorded this cut that although having the term “classical” in the title definitely seemed part of the youth oeuvre.

If you can play this on the guitar, you’re really good, at least in my book, I certainly couldn’t!

The track is loaded with changes, it’s infectious.

A TASTE OF HONEY

There wasn’t a household with a record player that did not own Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s “Whipped Cream & Other Delights.” I was either too young or too ignorant to be turned on by the cover, but you can do some web research and find out about the model and where she is today, I certainly did!

THE LONELY BULL

The Beatles had done a take of “A Taste Of Honey,” back in ’63, albeit with lyrics, but at that time most people had no idea who Herb Alpert was, even though he hit with this back in ’62, when the Beatles were unknown in America. Once “A Taste Of Honey” broke, we all looked backward, “The Lonely Bull” regained airplay. I always preferred it to “A Taste Of Honey,” now that’s a HOOK!

SOUL FINGER

The Bar-Kays are most famous for being decimated by the plane crash that took down Otis Redding, but before that they had a hit with this lighthearted romp, that always makes me feel good, because of the swagger, because of the trumpet trill.

JAVA

Speaking of the trumpet, this was a huge hit alongside the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion back in ’64. But it was so left field, we didn’t resent it, we embraced it. Listening all these years later, it’s astounding how little is on the record, how it breathes in the verses.

WIPEOUT

Yes, there was a long history of surf instrumentals before the Beatles, but this was the greatest, featured at every bar mitzvah party and school dance, I even owned the single. You can dig deeper with the Ventures, but this Surfaris hit is the piece de resistance.

LOVE THEME FROM ROMEO AND JULIET

Felice’s father had one of the last instrumental hits of the decade, Nino Rota wrote it, but Hank had the number one hit.

The movie was a phenomenon, and so was the single.

THEME FROM A SUMMER PLACE

This was a hit for Percy Faith way back in 1960, but it continued to get airplay throughout the decade. It always made you feel good, footloose and fancy free, thinking about the good times.

THEME FROM EXODUS

This powerful and meaningful cover of the soundtrack song by pianists Ferrante and Teicher went to number two at the turn of the decade, from the fifties to the sixties, back when it didn’t have to be British to be good. You can just see the movie in your head. Life is full of thrills and disappointments, we do our best to soldier on with the goal in mind.

THE STRIPPER

David Rose’s classic was cut in 1958, but didn’t see release until it was chosen to be a b-side of “Ebb Tide” in 1962. Is there anybody who doesn’t know this?

I don’t think so.

THE IN CROWD

This was a live take, and it made it all the way up to number five! Sure, it’s a great song, but this recording just swings! Something happens live that just doesn’t go down in the studio. Listen, this will blow your mind, from the era when being able to play was a given.

WALK, DON’T RUN

Can I really leave this Ventures smash out? I don’t think so! The kings of instrumental surf music created an indelible hit that everybody who picked up a guitar played, however inefficiently! Meanwhile, the magic is in the break!

TELSTAR

And if I’m mentioning “Walk, Don’t Run,” I guess this list can’t be complete without the Tornados smash, which had no lyrics, but we all sang along to!

OUT OF LIMITS

The Marketts surf hit has also withstood the test of time, so I must include it.

HAWAII FIVE-O

I wanted to leave this off for two reasons, one, I wasn’t going to mention any more surf tracks, and two, I already listed a Ventures cut, but despite being famous as a TV theme, the truth is this is one of the hits that has sustained over the decades. It sounds like Hawaii and surf, doesn’t it?

MEMPHIS

Lonnie Mack is being forgotten to the sands of time, but guitar players all knew him from this 1963 instrumental take, if not more.

TEQUILA

A monster hit for the Champs, “Tequila” has become indelibly linked in my mind with Pee-wee Herman’s big shoe dance in his first film, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”

At the time we didn’t know Tim Burton was a genius, this was his feature film debut, we thought it was about Pee-wee, whose big screen follow-up, “Big Top Pee-Wee,” was a disappointment.

But Pee-wee recovered on TV, but it was this film that put him over the top, before this he was a joke, who guest spotted and annoyed.

And “Big Adventure” is great throughout, but the big shoe dance is the peak.

Check out the long version here:

Pee Wee Herman – Tequila

If you just want to see the dance, click here:

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure – Tequila

GRAZING IN THE GRASS

I actually prefer the Friends Of Distinction’s vocal version, with the “I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it” part, but the truth is Hugh Masekela’s instrumental iteration is superior.

GREEN ONIONS

This Booker T. & the MG’s cut had its initial chart success in 1962, but it got a rebirth via inclusion in the soundtrack to “American Graffiti,” that’s how many people found out about it.

Originally I saw this playlist as having three components, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “Love Is Blue” and “A Taste Of Honey.” But then the more I streamed and the more I researched, I kept remembering iconic hits, back from when it didn’t have to fit a formula to succeed, music was inclusive and instrumentals were a regular feature on the hit parade!

Rhinofy-Sixties Instrumentals Primer

In 1973, the Allman Brothers were the biggest band in the land. Sure, Duane had died two years before, not long after the commercial and artistic breakthrough known as “Fillmore East,” but the band carried on, ate a peach, lost Berry and emerged with an album so ubiquitous, we were all ramblin’ men and women.

They headlined Watkins Glen, the biggest rock festival to that date, “Brothers and Sisters” ate up the chart, and then Gregg Allman dropped a solo LP.

It was not like today, where we don’t expect anybody to step out and do anything good, and if they release product, we check it out, shrug and move on. No, music used to be a commitment, you had to go to your local store and buy the record, and having laid down your cash you dropped the needle and digested it.

And there’s not a soul alive who didn’t see “Laid Back” as a disappointment, only because of the high quality of what had come before. But all these years later, one can see it’s peppered with highlights, like the definitive version of Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” in the incarnation that most people heard it first, and also “Queen of Hearts” and “Please Call Home.” But the track that got all the airplay opened the album, yes “Laid Back” started with a version of “Midnight Rider.”

It was many people’s introduction to the Allmans, the third cut on “Idlewild South” that galloped like a horse, that was so infectious you could never burn out it.

But Gregg’s version was different.

It was slow and swampy, all about the groove, but one thing remained the same, Gregg Allman’s voice.

Now that’s a rock star.

He was good-looking and reticent, tall and charismatic, and not only could he sing, he played, he was an integral part of the band, back when you led with your music, not your appearance.

I’ve got to run to keep from hidin’
And I’m bound to keep on ridin’

I get the urge to hide away on a regular basis, the feedback blows me away, both negative and positive, once I labored in obscurity, now I’m an international punching bag, but when you’ve got more questions than answers you’ve only got one choice, to keep on ridin’.

But I’m not gonna let ’em catch me, no
Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider

America is an outlaw culture, baby boomers understand this, the great American pastime was to get behind the wheel of your automobile when gas was far short of a buck a gallon and set off across this great country of ours, where you might call home collect every once in a while, but truly you were off the grid, no one knew where you were going, where you were, which is exactly how you liked it, because we don’t really want to be caught, we want to be free.

I’ve gone by the point of caring

That’s who I was worried I’ve become, a member of the over-the-hill gang, yes the baby boomers have a handful of years left at the helm of this country, and then we’re done, the music business transition is almost complete, if you’re not running the company, you’re not older than sixty, maybe fifty. And then I hear something like “Midnight Rider.”

This was back when all the swagger was in the grooves. When the goal was to drop the needle on your big rig and get closer to the music, fire up a doobie, drink some Jack or Bud, and settle into the most important thing in life, the elixir, the glue, music.

And I’m driving east on Pico, pushing the buttons on the satellite since Howard is on reruns, and I hear this.

And I’m brought back to art class at Middlebury, with this playing in the background, when you connected with the opposite sex not on what you wore, but what was between your ears.

Music was our soundtrack, our most valued companion, we went nowhere without it, even if it meant listening to the radio.

And the road goes on forever

I realized this afternoon that the road really does go on forever. That you’ve got no choice but to keep on keepin’ on. That around every bend are not only unforeseen potholes, but pleasures. That within the grooves of our old favorites is hope, as powerful as it was back in 1973.

Laid back my ass, we’re still groovin’, we’re still setting the pace, because we’ve got the power of music in us, no one is going to catch us midnight riders!

Gregg Allman – Midnight Rider – YouTube

Gregg Allman – Midnight Rider – Spotify