La Fin De La Semaine Essay Question: Special "A Study in Scarlet" Edition

Okay, I can now die happy -- that "bands that played at CBGB" box set (featuring a track by my 70s group The Hounds) that I've been tediously bending your ears about recently is officially released today, at last.

On Cherry Red Records, a/k/a the Coolest Label in the World™.

I promise I won't bore you about it further in the future, but at this juncture I feel obligated to mention that my candidate for the most underrated of the big time bands out of CBs -- and by far my personal favorite of all of them -- is without a question Mink DeVille.

Seriously -- those guys sounded like an unholy out of this world shtup between the Stones, Dylan, the Drifters/Ben E. King and some half-remembered NYC latin rock group. And their two albums on Capitol (produced by the great Jack Nitzche) remain astounding. I should also add that a) it is one of the great regrets of my adult life that I never got to see them live and b) that if you get me drunk sometime, I will tell you an absolutely terrifying story about what happened when I interviewed front man Willy DeVille in 1981.

But anyway, speaking of Cherry Red, now comes word that they're giving a similar deluxe box set treatment to -- be still my beating heart -- The Lovin' Spoonful.

From the official press release:

7 CD, 170-track box set compiling the complete 1960s recordings by The Lovin’ Spoonful.

• Mastering is by Grammy nominated archivist/producer Alec Palao.

• Includes their first four studio albums 'Do You Believe In Magic' (1965), 'Daydream' (1966), 'Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful' (1966) and 'Everything Playing' (1967) in both stereo and mono plus stereo mixes of their two soundtrack albums 'The Lovin’ Spoonful In Woody Allen’s ‘What’s Up Tiger Lily?' (1966) and 'You’re A Big Boy Now' (1967).

• Also contains the Joe Butler-helmed final album 'Revelation: Revolution ’69' (1969), original guitarist Zal Yanovsky’s solo album 'Alive And Well In Argentina' (1968) and stereo and mono versions of the early Lovin’ Spoonful tracks included on Elektra’s 1966 compilation 'What’s Shakin’, the mono mixes appearing on CD for the first time.

Including all of their hits: ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ (US #9), ‘You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice’ (US #10), ‘Daydream’ (US #2, UK #2), ‘Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind’ (US #2), ‘Summer In The City’ (US #1, UK #8), ‘Rain On The Roof’ (US #10), Nashville Cats (US # 8, UK #26), ‘Darling Be Home Soon’ (US #14), ‘Six O’Clock’ (US #18) and ‘She Is Still A Mystery’ (US #27).

Bonus tracks include ‘Alley Oop’, an out-take from their debut album sessions plus demos, alternative versions and instrumentals.

The Lovin’ Spoonful’s first seven singles gave them seven consecutive US Top 10 hits. Often described as Americas answer to The Beatles, The Lovin’ Spoonful were so much more. They rose out of the Greenwich Village folk boom and adjacent to the British Invasion hit big with their ‘good time music’, an exhilarating mix of jug band, blues, folk, rock and roll and big-hearted pop. MOJO Magazine’s Lois Wilson describes the members in the notes as “John Sebastian, a hugely talented, often underrated songwriter with a preternatural command of words and melody; Zalman Yanovsky, a protean guitar player, capable of fuzzed out psych, mercurial blues and fingerpicked folk; then Steve Boone and Joe Butler, bass and drums respectively, who provided a rock ’n’ roll framework with a jazz player’s lightness of touch”.

Just to let that sink in -- that's pretty much every single note they ever recorded in one handy dandy package.

The set is due to be released on March 27th, and let me just say that if anybody reading this here blog wants to get me a copy for my birthday I wouldn't say no. 😎

Anyway, that leads us to the subject of the weekend's business. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) track by John, Zal, Steve and Joe is...???

Discuss.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, here's my fave, which I think will surprise you.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!