 zalman "zal" yanovsky (december 19, 1944 &ndash; december 13, 2002) was a canadian rock musician. born in toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist avrom yanovsky. he played lead guitar and sang for the lovin' spoonful, a rock band which he founded with john sebastian in 1964. according to sebastian, "he could play like elmore james, he could play like floyd cramer, he could play like chuck berry. 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."rolling stone obituary he was married to actress jackie burroughs, with whom he had one daughter, zoe. ==musical career== one of the early rock and roll performers to wear a cowboy hat, and fringed "davy crockett" style clothing, zal helped set the trend followed by such 1960s performers as sonny bono, johnny rivers and david crosby. mostly self-taught, he began his musical career playing folk music coffee houses in toronto. he lived on a kibbutz in israel for a short time before returning to canada. he teamed with fellow canadian denny doherty in the halifax three. the two joined cass elliot in the mugwumps, a group made famous by doherty's & cass's later group the mamas & the papas in the song "creeque alley". it was at this time he met john sebastian and they formed the lovin' spoonful with steve boone and joe butler. in 1967, he was arrested in the united states on a marijuana-related charge. in exchange for not being deported, yanovsky gave up the name of his dealer, and as a consequence was ostracized by the music community.mollica, gary. [ biography in allmusic] 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 [[bill
1944_births 2002_deaths Canadian_Music_Hall_of_Fame_inductees Canadian_businesspeople Canadian_chefs Canadian_company_founders Canadian_folk_rock_musicians Canadian_restaurateurs Deaths_from_myocardial_infarction Jewish_Canadian_musicians Jewish_singers Musicians_from_Toronto People_from_Kingston,_Ontario