John Sebastian Discusses Rare Life and Career Ahead of Cincinnati Appearance

John Sebastian helped define an era at a turning point in popular music and culture in the ‘60s as a member of the rock and roll/folk-blended group The Lovin’ Spoonful. With the band, Sebastian put out a number of hits, like “Summer in the City,” “Do You Believe in Magic” and “You Didn’t Have to be So Nice” and also enjoyed a successful solo career in addition to historic session work.

His life has been like a tall tale of sorts, filled with amazing cultural connections to luminary figures growing up in Greenwich Village in the early ‘60s with parents in the entertainment industry.

These experiences would serve as a foundation for a career that would see him create timeless music, perform a surprise set at Woodstock and, ultimately, find a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and history.

Sebastian tells CityBeat of his supportive and informative, if not sometimes humbling, upbringing. “The normal rock and roll model of, ‘my dad sucks’ (laughs), ‘nobody in my family has any idea what I’m about,’ I can’t make any of those claims because my father, being a musician, was not only enjoying in my visibility as it came but was also a wonderful instructor, very carefully reminding me that this wasn’t how it was always going to be,” Sebastian said. “A lot of things that were really good to hear. And my mom, she wrote funny (material) for a living, and so she could, (with) one little piece of sarcasm, really cut you down because you were being an idiot. So, those as foundations were really, really helpful. I mean, as a writer and as a player.”

In addition to his creative parents, Sebastian was surrounded by a cast of characters that happen to be some of the biggest in the last century. Legendary children’s book illustrator Garth Williams (Charlotte’s Web, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series) was close with the family. Eleanor Roosevelt was a neighbor and Sebastian mentions a time when Woody Guthrie came to stay with family at the suggestion of actor/singer Burl Ives.

His mom, Jane Bashir, also wrote for TV legend and family friend Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy, when she’d appear on talk shows like The Tonight Show. Sebastian says he would use it as an excuse to stay up late as a kid. “I would occasionally stay up to watch Aunt Viv and that was one of the funny things that was just great growing up.” 

Like many of his generation, rock and roll sparked something in Sebastian. “There was a moment when I think was maybe 13 or so down in Florida and I heard ‘That’ll Be the Day’ (by Buddy Holly) and I thought, ‘What the hell was that?’ The first time I heard Jerry Lee Lewis, that floored me too.”

In addition to having the rare experience of being surrounded by a living Madame Tussaud’s cast of characters in his childhood, his coming of age at the same time as a historic revolution in music was forming in the underground, just down the street.

“I’m six blocks from the Gaslight Café, maybe eight blocks from Gerde’s Folk City; you know, it goes on like that. I was just in the midst of all this stuff. I just get Greenwich Village under my skin.” 

Of all the significant things going on around him, Sebastian jokes, “If I didn’t come up with a few good ideas, they should take me out behind the barn.”

He became a part of the folk scene in New York, working alongside people like Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan where he would form The Lovin’ Spoonful from a series of events and connections from the ‘60s folk scene.

He was introduced to Spoonful cofounder Zal Yanovsky through a mutual friendship with future Mamas & the Papas singer Cass Elliot after being invited to watch The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan debut in February of 1964 at her apartment.

“He and I start talking; I’m really enjoying it, and then we turn on The Beatles and we start just having fun with, ‘Hey, man, this is nothing but Carl Perkins.’ You know, ‘You guys are just recycling our shit,’” Sebastian said. “Anyway, it was all just a great big fun thing until it stopped and we kind of looked at each other and, I don’t know, it was sort of the beginning of, ‘Could this be a thing?’” 

The two filled out the band with bass player Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler, who had previously worked together. “So, it was like getting an intact rhythm section with two folkies,” Sebastian said. “Remember, Yanovsky and I were accompanists for folk groups. So, we did indeed have something unusual to offer.” The band was mixing folk stylings with rock and roll and coming from a somewhat underground scene. Sebastian says the group felt like they were “inventing something” with help from producer Erik Jacobsen.

With the new sound in tow, the group made their first of a handful of appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in January of 1967.

“We’re going, ‘He doesn’t know what we’re about. Yeah, we got a hit single; we’re going on Ed Sullivan. Ed’s just gonna give me a routine thing,’” Sebastian said. “No, Ed goes, ‘This is the American answer to the British invasion.’ I think for the first fraction of a second, when the camera goes to us, the three of us have our mouths open. I think three out of four of us are going ‘Whaaat?’ We didn’t ever expect him to know anything about this.”

The Lovin’ Spoonful became one of the biggest groups of the ‘60s, an era full of some of the most significant names in pop music, but had broken up by 1968. 

Sebastian went on to pursue a solo career, and in August of ‘69, got word of a festival called Woodstock happening in upstate New York from friend and producer Paul Rothchild.

After narrowly making it to Woodstock, he found himself standing between two of the festival’s organizers dealing with a rain delay. “I was unprepared in any way and just standing onstage when the two guys who were, more or less, formative (to the festival) onstage were going, ‘We need someone to hold them with an acoustic guitar because we can’t put an electric amp onstage until we get the water swept off’ because it had rained immediately before,” Sebastian said. “It was just, borrow Timmy Hardin’s Harmony Sovereign guitar and get the hell up there.” He performed three yet-to-be-released songs from his upcoming solo debut and two from The Lovin’ Spoonful solo with an acoustic guitar for the massive crowd that would be immortalized in the Woodstock concert film. 

The tie-dye jacket he wore that day and his clothing around the time would help define the look of the era. Sebastian says he learned the process from “textile guru” Ann Thomas during his time staying at an artist gathering in Burbank, California.

Sebastian is also featured on records by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who’s Keith Moon and Gordon Lightfoot, among others.

Of one of the sessions, Sebastian recalls Rothchild approached him because he thought Sebastian would have a positive effect on The Doors frontman Jim Morrison. Sebastian says it was a fun and productive session, one that resulted in The Doors’ hit “Roadhouse Blues.”  

Sebastian also wrote for Broadway and in the mid-‘70s was approached to write a theme song for a new TV show starring a young John Travolta. His song, “Welcome Back,” would cause them to retitle the show Welcome Back, Kotter and resulted in a No. 1 hit song. 

Sebastian has since moved more toward where he started, with folk music in addition to work on soundtracks, sessions, guest appearances and solo releases, most recently with 2021’s John Sebastian and Arlen Roth Explore the Spoonful Songbook. 

His relationship with Jimmy Vivino began around 40 years ago, even before Vivino would begin his tenure working with comedy great Conan O’Brien. Sebastian tells CityBeat that the connection with Vivino started as a friendship working on sessions with Felix Cavaliere and Laura Nyro. When he formed his folk “jug” band in the ‘90s, known as the J-Band, Sebastian tells CityBeat, “Vivino was one of the first people I drafted because his interest is so, so extensive.

“That’s part of the great fun of these appearances. We’re both exploring stuff outside of our normal realm. But, understanding, (adopts tough New York accent) ‘You know, there’s a couple tunes we wanna hear, you know what I’m sayin’?’ So, we haven’t ignored that.”

Sebastian, who remembers performing local dates over the years, told CityBeat, “Ohio was absolutely a great place for the Spoonful,” and is also more directly tied to the region. His mom and family are from Dayton and he tells CityBeat of the special connection he has visiting the region today. “Just to hear somebody go, (adopting midwestern accent) ‘Hi, honey, you want some pie?’ Just the way that that comes across I go, ‘My god, it’s Edna, my grandmother.’”

John Sebastian and Jimmy Vivino play the Ludlow Garage on Aug. 3 at 7:30 p.m. More info: ludlowgaragecincinnati.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat's July 24 print edition.