Zal Yanovsky of the Lovin’ Spoonful.
Sixty years ago today, a Toronto-born musician found himself at the top of the music charts with a song that would become one of the most recognizable rock songs ever recorded.
On Aug. 13, 1966, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Summer in the City reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band’s only song to reach the top spot.
And helping make that song sound like the sweaty, noisy urban summer it described was a guitar player from Toronto named Zal Yanovsky.
Yanovsky didn’t write Summer in the City; that credit belongs to John Sebastian, his brother Mark Sebastian and Steve Boone. But as the Lovin’ Spoonful’s lead guitarist and backing vocalist, Yanovsky was an important part of the band — and he had a direct hand in creating some of the unusual sounds that helped make the recording so memorable.
Summer in the City was unlike most summer songs.
Instead of romanticizing sunshine and warm weather, the song complained about the oppressive heat and noise of the daytime, before celebrating the cooler temperatures and nightlife that arrived after dark.
The recording matched the lyrics.
It was harder and more aggressive than the Lovin’ Spoonful’s earlier folk-rock hits, with car horns, a pneumatic drill and unusual percussion effects creating the feeling of a city boiling under the summer heat.
And Yanovsky was right in the middle of the experimentation.
During the recording sessions, a microphone was placed inside a garbage can, which Yanovsky struck with a drumstick. The resulting sound was described by engineer Fred Catero as resembling a “gigantic explosion.”
But Yanovsky wasn’t satisfied.
He wanted the drums to sound even bigger, telling engineer Roy Halee that he wanted them to sound like “garbage cans being thrown down a steel staircase.”
Halee responded by creating a massive reverb effect using a metal staircase in the studio, placing a microphone high on the staircase and a speaker on the floor below.
The unusual percussion was only part of the experiment.
The band also decided the song needed the sounds of a city. During another session, they listened to recordings of various effects before settling on car horns and a pneumatic drill.
The result was a song that sounded like almost nothing else on the radio in 1966.
And the timing couldn’t have been better.
The single arrived during a major heat wave, helping turn the song into the soundtrack of the summer.
On Aug. 13, it overtook The Troggs’ Wild Thing to take the No. 1 position in the United States. It stayed there for three weeks before being replaced by Donovan’s Sunshine Superman.
It also reached No. 1 in Canada.
For Yanovsky, it was the biggest hit of a remarkable life.
Born in Toronto on Dec. 19, 1944, Yanovsky was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky and teacher Nechama Yanovsky. He attended Downsview Collegiate Institute and was largely self-taught as a musician.
He began playing folk music in Toronto coffeehouses before spending time on a kibbutz in Israel and eventually returning to Canada.
Yanovsky later teamed up with fellow Canadian Denny Doherty in the Halifax Three before becoming a member of the Mugwumps, a group that also included Cass Elliot.
He eventually met John Sebastian, and the two formed the Lovin’ Spoonful with Steve Boone and Joe Butler in 1964.
The band quickly became one of the biggest acts of the 1960s, producing hits such as Do You Believe in Magic, Daydream, You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice and Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?
But none reached the heights of Summer in the City.
It was the group’s only No. 1 hit.
Yanovsky left the Lovin’ Spoonful in 1967 and eventually walked away from the music business.
His next act was almost as unexpected as the sounds he helped create on Summer in the City.
He became a chef and restaurateur.
In 1979, Yanovsky and his second wife, Rose Richardson, opened Chez Piggy in Kingston. The restaurant became a Kingston institution, and the couple later opened Pan Chancho Bakery.
Yanovsky also became a cookbook author, with The Chez Piggy Cookbook published in 1998.
He died of a heart attack in Kingston on Dec. 13, 2002, just six days before his 58th birthday.
But his musical legacy lives on every summer.
Sixty years after Summer in the City climbed to the top of the charts, the song remains instantly recognizable from its pounding rhythm and guitar to the horns, jackhammer and unmistakable percussion that make the listener feel the heat of the city.
And somewhere inside that classic recording is the unmistakable contribution of a Toronto-born guitarist who wanted his drums to sound like garbage cans crashing down a steel staircase.
Not a bad legacy for a kid from Toronto.
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