Zal Yanovsky
Encyclopedia
Zalman "Zal" Yanovsky was a Canadian rock musician. Born in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky
Avrom Yanovsky
Avrom Yanovsky was a Canadian editorial cartoonist. His cartoons were printed as early as the 1930s. Most of his cartoons were printed in Canadian Tribune. He also illustrated left wing publications like the screenplay for Eight Men Speak...

. He played lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

 and sang for the Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...

, a rock band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...

 which he founded with John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...

 in 1964. According to Sebastian, "He could play like Elmore James
Elmore James
Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...

, he could play like Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound." He popularized the "slip note" piano style where an out-of-tune note slides effortlessly into the correct note...

, he could play like Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

. He could play like all these people, yet he still had his own overpowering personality. Out of this we could, I thought, craft something with real flexibility." He was married to actress Jackie Burroughs
Jackie Burroughs
Jacqueline "Jackie" Burroughs was an English-born Canadian actress.-Life and career:Born in Lancashire, England, Burroughs acted in live theatre at Ontario's Stratford Festival...

, with whom he had one daughter, Zoe.

Musical career

One of the early rock and roll performers to wear a cowboy hat
Cowboy hat
The cowboy hat is a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat best known as the defining piece of attire for the North American cowboy. Today it is worn by many people, and is particularly associated with ranch workers in the western and southern United States, western Canada and northern Mexico, with...

, and fringed "Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...

" style clothing, Zal helped set the trend followed by such 1960s performers as Sonny Bono
Sonny Bono
Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono was an American recording artist, record producer, actor, and politician whose career spanned over three decades.-Early life:...

, Johnny Rivers
Johnny Rivers
Johnny Rivers is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. His styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs and some original material...

 and David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...

.

Mostly self-taught, he began his musical career playing folk music coffee houses in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. He lived on a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 for a short time before returning to Canada. He teamed with fellow Canadian Denny Doherty
Denny Doherty
Dennis Gerrard Stephen Doherty was a Canadian singer and songwriter. He was most widely known as a founding member of the 1960s musical group The Mamas & the Papas.-Early career:...

 in the Halifax Three. The two joined Cass Elliot
Cass Elliot
Cass Elliot , born Ellen Naomi Cohen and also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot was found dead in her room in London, England, from an apparent heart attack after two weeks of sold-out...

 in the Mugwumps
The Mugwumps
The Mugwumps were a 1960s rock band. The Mugwumps made some recordings in the mid-60s, but the short-lived New York group, formed in 1964, is principally remembered for what its members did after they split up....

, a group made famous by Doherty's & Cass's later group the Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...

, in the song "Creeque Alley
Creeque Alley
"Creeque Alley" is an autobiographical hit single written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas in 1967, narrating the story about how the group was formed. The title of the song is derived from the place Creque or Crequi Alley, home to a club in the Virgin Islands where...

". It was at this time he met John Sebastian and they formed the Lovin' Spoonful with Steve Boone
Steve Boone
Steve Boone is the bass guitarist for the rock band, The Lovin' Spoonful.After the Lovin' Spoonful stopped touring in 1968, Boone went to work producing an album for Mercury Records by the Oxpetals. Soon after finishing the album Boone bought a 56 ft sailboat 'Cygnus' and moved onto it in the...

 and Joe Butler.

In 1967, he was arrested in the United States on a marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

-related charge. In exchange for not being deported, Yanovsky gave the name of his dealer, and as a consequence was ostracized by the music community. Returning to his native Canada, he recorded a solo album Alive and Well in Argentina (and Loving Every Minute of It). Buddah Records released the album in the U.S. in 1968, along with a single that did not appear on the album, "As Long As You're Here". The single (in which the B-side was the same track without vocals and recorded backwards) just missed the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

, but fared a little better in Cashbox, peaking at #73. Kama Sutra Records
Kama Sutra Records
Kama Sutra Records was started in 1964 by Arthur "Artie" Ripp, Hy Mizrahi and Phil Steinberg as Kama Sutra Productions, a production house. The word "Kama Sutra" is a Sanskrit terminology....

 reissued the album in 1971 with a completely different cover and inclusion of "As Long As You're Here".

While a member of Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...

's backing band at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Isle of Wight Festival 1970
The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was held between 26 and 31 August 1970 at East Afton Farm an area on the western side of the Isle of Wight. It was the last of three consecutive music festivals to take place on the island between 1968 and 1970 and widely acknowledged as the largest musical event of...

, he made a brief reunion with John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...

; Sebastian had been (apparently) unaware of Yanovsky's presence, and was made aware of that by a message passed through the crowd, written on a toilet roll.

He also appeared in the Off-Broadway show "National Lampoon's Lemmings
National Lampoon's Lemmings
National Lampoon's Lemmings, a spinoff of the humor magazine National Lampoon, was a 1973 stage show which helped launch the performing careers of John Belushi, Christopher Guest, and Chevy Chase. The show was co-written and co-directed by a number of people including Sean Kelly...

" at New York's Village Gate
The Village Gate
The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York.Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 158 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as...

. Although not an original cast member, he contributed a musical number "Nirvana Banana", a Donovan parody.

Restaurateur

After leaving the music business, Zal became a chef and restaurateur, establishing, alongside his second wife Rose Richardson, Chez Piggy restaurant in 1979 and Pan Chancho Bakery in 1994, both in Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

.
He had worked as a chef at The Golden Apple (in Gananoque, Ontario
Gananoque, Ontario
Gananoque is a town in Leeds and Grenville County, Ontario, Canada. The town had a population of 5,287 year-round residents in the Canada 2006 Census, as well as summer residents sometimes referred to as "Islanders" because of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River, Gananoque's most...

) and, in the mid-'70s, at Dr. Bull's (in Kingston).
The success of Chez Piggy prompted the publication of a companion cookbook (The Chez Piggy Cookbook, Firefly Books, 1998) that was collected by fans. After Zal's death of congestive heart failure
Congestive heart failure
Heart failure often called congestive heart failure is generally defined as the inability of the heart to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the needs of the body. Heart failure can cause a number of symptoms including shortness of breath, leg swelling, and exercise intolerance. The condition...

 in December 2002, and Richardson's death in 2005, his daughter Zoe Yanovsky (with actress Jackie Burroughs
Jackie Burroughs
Jacqueline "Jackie" Burroughs was an English-born Canadian actress.-Life and career:Born in Lancashire, England, Burroughs acted in live theatre at Ontario's Stratford Festival...

) took over the ownership of both eateries. She also completed and launched another cookbook that Zal was working on, The Pan Chancho Cookbook (Bookmakers Press, 2006).

Death

Yanovsky died on December 13, 2002 in Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 from a heart attack. A funeral service was held for him in Kingston, Ontario on December 16, 2002.

Singles

  • "As Long As You're Here" (Billboard #101, Cashbox #73)/"Ereh Er'uoy Sa Gnol Sa" -- Buddah 12—1968

Albums

  • Alive and Well In Argentina — Buddah BDS-5019 — 1968
Raven In A Cage / You Talk Too Much / Last Date / Little Bitty Pretty One / Alive and Well In Argentina / Brown To Blue / Priscilla Millionaira / I Almost Lost My Mind / Hip Toad / Lt. Schtinckhausen
  • Alive and Well In Argentina — Kama Sutra KSBS-2030 — 1971
Same tracks as above, but also includes "As Long As You're Here" (side 1, track 6). Completely different album cover and liner notes than the original release.

External links

  • [ Yanovsky's entry in Allmusic]
  • Profile for Zal Yanovsky at Find A Grave
    Find A Grave
    Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...

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