Monday, September 5, 2016

McQ's 2015/1967 Countdown - 09/05/16 Update

Today we take a quick look at the last song on Volume 7 of our 1967 collection, The Calm Before The Calm, that won't in some way make our best of 1967 countdown.

Darling Be Home Soon was one of the last hit singles for The Byrd's main American mid-sixties folk rock rivals - the New York-based The Lovin' Spoonful - and the song hit big at just about the same time Canadian lead guitarist Zal Yanovsky, fearing deportation, named his supplier after being busted for drug possession in San Francisco, an action which inspired a counter-culture boycott of the band from which the group would never really recover.  Yanovsky left the band just weeks after the incident, and within a year, lead singer and principal songwriter John Sebastian would also depart.

But prior to that moment, throughout 1965 and 1966, The Lovin' Spoonful were among America's biggest and most likable hit makers, and Darling Be Home soon, originally released on the soundtrack for the movie You're A Big Boy Now (for which Sebastian had provided much of the music) but repackaged as a single in '67, and then later also a hit for Joe Cocker, perfectly encapsulates their sweet, upbeat, folksy, jug band charm.

The band will be a much bigger part of our 1966 retrospective to come next year, but for now, enjoy this fine track.

No comments: