Zal Yanovsky, 57, whose distinctive guitar playing and ebullient personality helped make the Lovin" Spoonful one of the most popular rock groups of the late 1960s, died of a heart attack Friday at his home outside Kingston, Ontario.
One of the biggest North American rock bands when the Beatles and other British acts dominated the pop charts, Lovin" Spoonful had 10 singles in the Billboard Top 40 between 1965 and 1967. Their first seven - beginning with "Do You Believe in Magic?" - all reached the Top 10, and "Summer in the City" reached No. 1 in 1966.
By the time the group released what would be its last Top 40 record, "She Is Still a Mystery." Mr. Yanovsky had left. Not long after that, the Toronto native left the music business entirely and began a successful second career as a restaurateur in Canada.
On record and in performance, Lovin' Spoonful's focal point was John Sebastian, who handled the lead vocals and was the writer or co-writer of all the group's hits. But Mr. Yanovsky's lively, bluesy guitar work was essential to the group's sound, which seamlessly mixed varied elements like traditional folk, old-time rock 'n' roll, country and even jug band music.
His endearingly goofy, rubber-faced stage presence was a vital part of the band's appeal. He also sang harmony and the occasional lead, usually on novelty tunes like "Bald-Headed Lena."
Mr. Yanovsky taught himself the guitar and played for spare change on the streets as a teenager before joining Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot, two future members of the Mamas and the Papas, in the Mugwumps, a folk group in the early 1960s. He and Mr. Sebastian formed Lovin' Spoonful with bassist Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler in 1965. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
At his death, Mr. Yanovsky and his wife, Rose Richardson, owned a thriving restaurant, Chez Piggy, and a bakery, Pan Chancho.
Hugh Clarke Tuttle, 81, patriarch of a farm in Dover, N.H., honored as America's oldest continuously run family business, died there Saturday after a long period of failing health.
Part of the 10th generation of Tuttles to manage the farm on Dover Point Road near Maine, Mr. Tuttle was credited with transforming it into a modern family corporation. As surrounding farms succumbed to debt, a lack of interest from succeeding generations, or pressure from real estate speculators, the Tuttle Farm adapted and thrived.
Today, it is a 240-acre, fully computerized operation that features a 9,000-square-foot food emporium serving 1,000 customers a day. More a retailer than a producer, Tuttle Farm now grows less than 10 percent of all the goods it sells.
The keys to survival, Mr. Tuttle told The Boston Globe in 1988, were simple - traits like bare-knuckled determination, a Yankee sense of thrift, and a willingness to embrace change, possessed by generations of Tuttles.
"My grandfather used to say that if you want to survive in farming, you'd better find out which way the parade is going and get out in front of it." Mr. Tuttle said then, as he looked over a patch of genetically engineered strawberries.
The story of the Tuttle Farm begins in 1632, Mr. Tuttle told the newspaper.
John Tuttle, an apprentice barrel-maker from Bristol, England, and his family were shipwrecked on the Angel Gabriel off the Maine coast. The family survived the wreck but lost almost everything. With little more than the clothes on their backs and a deed from King Charles I to Dover Point land, they walked several miles and carved out a farm on 30 acres amid the towering white pines.
"He had no tools other than a broadaxe and maybe a saw." Mr. Tuttle said. "He had no livestock. I don't know how he survived."
The Tuttles passed the family farm down from youngest son to youngest son - as is the practice of their Quaker religion. During the early 1800s, the farm was a stopping point on the underground railroad for fugitive slaves.
Since the advent of the supermarket, the Tuttle operation shifted from supplying vegetables to mom-and-pop stores to selling direct to consumers and, by the 1970s, retailing gourmet food and imported produce.