Editing The Lovin' Spoonful (section)

==== ''You're a Big Boy Now'' soundtrack; Yanovsky and Jacobsen fired ====

In mid-October{{nbsp}}1966, the Spoonful recorded [[You're a Big Boy Now (album)|a soundtrack album]] for the 1966 film ''[[You're a Big Boy Now]]''. The film served as the master's thesis of the director [[Francis Ford Coppola]], who was then attending [[UCLA Film School]].{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=163–164}} After meeting with Coppola in September to discuss the project,{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=75}} Sebastian wrote the songs on his own before presenting them to the musician [[Artie Schroeck]], who arranged the compositions for an orchestra.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=163–164}} After Butler struggled with the drum part, the session musician [[Bill LaVorgna]] played in his place.{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=77}} [[David "Fathead" Newman]] played saxophone during the sessions and [[Clark Terry]] played [[flügelhorn]].{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=77}}

{{quote box|quote= [Not working with the Spoonful anymore] was fine by me, because we had kind of run our course. We were falling apart.{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}} |source=– [[Erik Jacobsen]], 2003|width=25%|align=left|salign=right|style=padding:8px;}}

During the editing of ''You're a Big Boy Now'', Coppola used the Mamas & the Papas' 1966 single "[[Monday, Monday]]" as [[temp music]] for one sequence in the film, for which Sebastian wrote "[[Darling Be Home Soon]]".{{sfn|Myers|2017|pp=75–76}} Sebastian's composition flips a genre convention by describing a male subject waiting for a female to return home.{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=76}}{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=164}} The Spoonful recorded the song in one night, but Sebastian's original vocal track was subsequently wiped. Sebastian later attributed the loss to an accident on the part of an engineer, saying that what is heard on the final recording "is me, a half hour after learning that my original vocal track had been erased". He added: "You can even hear my voice quiver a little at the end. That was me thinking about the vocal we lost and wanting to kill someone."{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=77}} Boone instead suggests that Jacobsen deliberately erased Sebastian's vocal after finding it substandard; Boone recalled that the event marked the angriest he had ever seen Sebastian. Jacobsen was soon fired from working with the band, and Boone suggests that the vocal-erasure "probably played a major role" in Jacobsen's departure.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=163–164}}

The lack of collaboration on ''You're a Big Boy Now'' led to consternation from Sebastian's bandmates, especially Yanovsky, whose playing style often relied on improvisation.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=163–164}} Yanovsky especially disliked the soundtrack album's lead single, "Darling Be Home Soon", which was issued in early{{nbsp}}1967.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=170}}{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=74}} When the Spoonful appeared on ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'' in January to promote the release, Yanovsky [[Overacting|mugged]] for the camera, miming the lyrics and bouncing up-and-down with a rubber-toad figurine attached to his guitar.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=170}}{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}} The appearance led to laughter from the audience and anger from Sebastian.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=170}} "Darling Be Home Soon" peaked at number fifteen,{{sfn|Myers|2017|p=74}}{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=170}} a major disappointment compared to the band's earlier releases and their first single which failed to reach the Top Ten.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=170}} Also disappointing was the release of the ''You're a Big Boy Now'' soundtrack, which peaked at number 160 on the ''Billboard'' Top LPs chart in May{{nbsp}}1967.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=173}} The album's sales were hampered by the release in March of the band's first greatest hits compilation, ''[[The Best of The Lovin' Spoonful]]'',{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=173}} which reached number three and became the band's best selling album.<ref name="Billboard chart history" />{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=173}}

{{quote box|quote= I wanted us to go back [to the clubs] and try to recapture that sort of energy{{nbsp}}... I had told John [Sebastian] that I thought his songwriting [had] really gone down the toilet and I thought that{{nbsp}}... it was time for him to get back into the "risk element".<ref name="Rock Family Trees" /> |source=– [[Zal Yanovsky]], 1998|width=25%|align=right|salign=right|style=padding:8px;}}

From late{{nbsp}}1966 into early{{nbsp}}1967, Sebastian's bandmates felt he was exerting excessive control over the band's direction.{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}}{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=165}} Boone recalled that the relationship between Sebastian and Yanovsky became especially stilted, since Yanovsky often rebelled rather than articulate his concerns directly.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=165–166}} Further agitating the situation, when Koppelman and Rubin renegotiated the band's distribution deal between Kama Sutra and MGM in late{{nbsp}}1966, though the band received an increase in pay, the label added a "key-man clause" which specified that the band would only exist if Sebastian was a member.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=167–168}}{{refn|group=nb|A July{{nbsp}}1967 article in ''[[The Wichita Beacon]]'' reported that the Spoonful's new contract with Kama Sutra ran until 1975 and had the band's compensation at seven figures.<ref>{{cite newspaper|author=H.I.M. KLEO Good Guy|title=Peach Blight|newspaper=[[The Wichita Beacon]]|date=July 12, 1967|page=8B|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-wichita-beacon-peach-blight-by-him/161064074/|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>}}

In May{{nbsp}}1967, Sebastian convened a meeting with Butler and Boone to discuss the band's future. Sebastian expressed frustration with Yanovsky's increasingly erratic public behavior and his derogatory treatment of his bandmates. Sebastian concluded that either Yanovsky should be fired, or else he was prepared to leave the band.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=174–175}} Butler, who had never gotten along with Yanovsky{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=124}} and was increasingly the target of Yanovsky's insults, agreed with Sebastian.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=175}} In a subsequent group meeting at Sebastian's apartment, the band informed Yanovsky that he had been fired.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=175–176}} He agreed to continue performing the rest of the group's scheduled dates,{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=175–176}} but rumors circulated throughout June that the band was breaking up.<ref>{{cite magazine|author=Anon.|title=Zal quits Spoonful – new boy in|magazine=[[Disc and Music Echo]]|date=July 1, 1967|page=4}}</ref> He last performed with the Spoonful on {{nowrap|June 24, 1967}}, at the [[Forest Hills Music Festival]] in [[Queens]], New York.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=176}}{{sfn|Rees|Crampton|1991|p=317}}<ref name="FHMF">{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=John S. |author1-link=John S. Wilson (music critic) |title=Lovin' Spoonful at Forest Hills: Opening Festival Concert Is Last for Guitarist |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/06/26/archives/lovin-spoonful-at-forest-hills-opening-festival-concert-is-last-for.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 26, 1967 |page=36 |url-access=subscription |via=[[TimesMachine]]}}</ref>