Kris Kross

1996 saw the release of their final album Young, Rich and Dangerous which was also a commercial dissapointment. Recently, he has played with John Sebastian and the J-Band, a jug band including Fritz Richmond from the Even Dozen Jug Band, Yank Rachell, an original jug-band leader, and Geoff Muldaur. Released in 1993, a second album, entitled Da Bomb failed to match their early success. In the '70s, Sebastian had a hit with the theme song to the Welcome Back, Kotter TV show, which found new life decades later when a sample from it became the hook for rapper Mase's 2004 hit "Welcome Back". This landed them a spot on Michael Jackson's European tour that year. The Lovin' Spoonful became part of the American response to the British Invasion and was noted for such folk-flavored hits as "Jug Band Music", "Do You Believe in Magic," "Summer In the City," "Daydream," "Nashville Cats," "Did You Ever have to Make Up Your Mind," "Six O'Clock," and "Younger Girl." The chart-topping band were originally to perform on the TV show that became The Monkees and also gained an added bit of publicity when Butler replaced Jim Rado in the role of Claude for a sold-out four-month run with the Broadway production of the rock musical Hair. It included the hit single Jump, which stayed at number 1 on the Billboard charts for eight weeks. The band also featured popular drummer-vocalist Joseph Campbell Butler.

Their first album, Totally Krossed Out, was released in 1992 and managed to sell more than four million copies. Sebastian was joined by Zal Yanovsky in the Spoonful, which was named after a Mississippi John Hurt song. They were discovered in 1991 performing at a mall in Atlanta, GA by Jermaine Dupri. He came up through the Even Dozen Jug Band and the Mugwumps, which split to form the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas and Papas. Kris Kross (Chris Kelly and Chris Smith) were a teenage rap duo of the early 90's most famous for wearing their clothes backward. He grew up surrounded by music and musicians, including Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie and hearing such players as Leadbelly and Mississippi John Hurt in his own neighborhood. His father, also named John Sebastian, was a noted classical harmonica player and his mother was a radio script writer.

Sebastian was born in Greenwich Village in New York City. He is best known as a founder of the Lovin' Spoonful, a band named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. John Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American songwriter and harmonica player.