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IN CONCERT: The Lovin' Spoonful, The Cowsills
Where: Red Robinson Show Theatre, 2080 United Blvd., Coquitlam
When: Friday at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $34.50, $44.50 at Ticketmaster
Chances are, if you had your ears welded to the transistor radio in 1967, you heard the sunshine goodness of The Cowsills' "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" or one of many hits by the Lovin' Spoonful — "Summer in the City," "Nashville Cats," maybe "She is Still a Mystery."
These are uplifting songs. Not deep but bright, as catchy as they are clever. Good-time music.
Both bands grew up or grew apart by 1969, in part victims of changing culture and misunderstanding.
They're back, though, The Lovin' Spoonful featuring co-founders Joe Butler and Steve Boone, longtime member Jerry Yester, plus Mike Arturi and Phil Smith, while The Cowsills remain a family guided by Bob Cowsill, despite the deaths of Bill and Barry Cowsill three years ago.
The Spoonful also has weathered setbacks with main songwriter, John Sebastian, alienating himself from the group and the 2002 death of talented guitarist, Zal Yanovsky.
For his part, Butler still remembers the excitement of hearing its first hit, 1965's "Do You Believe In Magic," on the radio.
"We were driving a rented Cadillac convertible in the hills of San Francisco," Butler recalls. "We were smoking pot, which you did in the '60s, and Zal, who was always foolin' with the radio, heard [the Beach Boys'] 'I wish they all could be California girls' . . . Then, Zally tuned to another station and we heard 'da-doom, da-doom' [the opening bars of "Do You Believe In Magic"]. We just looked at each other."
A golden moment like that showed up more often on Cowsills records than in life. The group was formed by the Cowsill brothers, later joined by sister, Susan, and managed by father, Bud.
Immediately, there was trouble. Bud fired Artie Kornfield, the producer of "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things" and Billy began a rebellion that continued long after he was exiled by Bud in 1969 for, gad, smoking pot.
Billy never stopped being a fanatic about harmonies or the unappreciated talent of his family. Bob Cowsill is as forthright.
"It's a long story," he begins, "But our father was a knucklehead. Billy was tossed from the family like a piece of meat.
"As you get older, you get wiser," Bob continues. "Billy and I were in the thick of it and when you're in the thick of it, you don't see.
"The appreciation comes with aging. When we started out, me and Billy were the oldest. I was 17."
Although both groups have known intermittent recording, reunions and documentaries along the way, their heyday was the '60s.
"It happened so fast," Butler says. "We were so busy. There are moments you don't forget, like hearing the first time your song is on the radio.
"This is our failing: We never pushed. So, we never were taken seriously or had an audience as wide as we could have had."
"We were quite proud of what we did," adds Cowsill. "There was so much going on. It was real wild. You had to keep your head screwed on. Now it's being done for the right reasons. For the love."
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