Chris Varias

Special to Cincinnati Enquirer

John Sebastian nearly joined Crosby, Stills and Nash when the band rehearsed at his place. Stephen Stills suggested it, as Sebastian handled the drum parts to Stills’ liking.

Sebastian also played a solo set at the Woodstock festival. He had a number-one hit with the theme song to “Welcome Back, Kotter.”

Of course, he also was inducted as a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a founding member of the Lovin’ Spoonful.

There are too many twists and turns of Sebastian’s career to cover adequately. So we homed in on one in particular: his harmonica playing on the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” because local legend Lonnie Mack was also on that session.

Sebastian comes to town Thursday, Feb. 6, for a solo performance.

Question: Is your show a greatest-hits set, or are you featuring new or lesser-known material?

Answer: I try to get around to all of that stuff. Try to throw something they don’t know about right in there with something that is familiar, and maybe play a song that shows you where another song comes from. I’m entertaining myself as much as anybody else.

Q: I have to ask the obligatory “Roadhouse Blues” question. Were you playing live in the same room with Lonnie Mack on that?

A: Yes, my friend. People go, “How was that Doors session?” And I go, “You know, Lonnie Mack was on that session.” They want to talk about Jimmy (Morrison). I want to talk about Lonnie. It was absolutely live. We did it all with Paul Rothchild engineering. Jim was in an iso booth. I was out in the room sort of closer to guitar and drums, but my amp was closeted somewhere, so we could do it all live and not bleed all over each other.

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Q: What was Lonnie’s contribution to that track?

A: I was so excited that I might not be the best judge of what was happening. I am playing my a** off. Every take that came down, I was really concentrating on Lonnie, and once we had that lick, that sort of charted our path, and Jim was behaving well. This sounds like bragging, but it’s the way the session emerged. Rothchild approached me that they were occasionally having problems recording Jim, because he didn’t really have a tether, and Paul felt like – it’s another thing that sounds strange, because the Doors are regarded as immortal and nobody remembers the Spoonful – but at that moment, the Spoonful had a certain, I don’t know, musical gravitas. We were writing our own stuff and so on. What Paul said was, “I think Jim will behave more if you’re there.” I didn’t really know that Lonnie Mack was gonna play bass. I knew that Lonnie was being recorded by Elektra at that time because I was sort of shadowing Paul Rothchild in those days, just to learn as much as I could, but also to pal around with a really interesting cat.

Q: Why are the Doors regarded as immortal in a way that the Lovin’ Spoonful aren’t?

A: I think two things. One was being grouped in with folk rock, which was more the Byrds and other people that didn’t really play their own stuff. It’s an odd thing, but I do think that the fact that boys got busted in San Francisco turned a whole generation of reporters against, subconsciously, the Spoonful. (Guitarist Zal Yanovsky and bassist Steve Boone were arrested in 1966 for marijuana possession.) They didn’t realize that I wasn’t in that town. But I’m in with the boys.

Q: I hear the Lovin’ Spoonful on satellite radio fairly often these days. Did you know at the time you were recording those songs that they’d be played more than 50 years later?

A: Absolutely not. In fact, the whole measuring stick was, it’d be alive for three months. That was it. That was like, get on the charts, it climbs, maybe you get somewhere near the top, then it starts to go down. The whole thing takes three months. That’s all. And, really, everything that we were coming up with was, “Wouldn’t this be great if it actually was visible for three months?”

If you go

What: John Sebastian

When: 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6

Where: Ludlow Garage, 342 Ludlow Ave., Clifton; 513-861-7625

Tickets: $30-$65

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