The leading California-based vocal group of the '60s, the Mamas & the Papas epitomized the ethos of the mid- to late-'60s pop culture: live free, play free, and love free. Their music, built around radiant harmonies and a solid electric folk foundation, was gorgeous on its own terms, but a major part of its appeal lay in the easygoing southern California lifestyle it endorsed. The group's success was as extraordinary as it was brief, and onlookers may well wonder what went wrong with a performing group that seemed to have the world at its feet for all of two years. The irony behind the Mamas & the Papas' story is that the same forces that made it possible for them to create extraordinary music together also made it impossible for them to stay together for more than a short time.The group's founder and de facto leader, John Phillips, born in 1935, was actually quite a bit older than most of the figures who emerged as rock stars during the middle and late 1960s.
He was more of Elvis Presley's generation, the product of a chaotic home life with a difficult childhood and adolescence, and seemed to be headed for life as a low-level delinquent until he was scared straight, and then had been headed for the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD. In the background, however, was music, the guitar, and the sounds of Elvis Presley, the Platters, Teresa Brewer, and everyone else charting records in the mid-'50s. He eventually entered music professionally, while his first marriage produced two children (one of them future actress MacKenzie Phillips). Phillips' first music forays moved from pop to soft jazz and finally into folk music, through groups such as the Smoothies and the Journeymen. The latter group, a trio with Dick Weissman and Scott McKenzie, was one of the most promising small ensembles of the early-'60s folk music boom, but it never connected with the public despite being signed to Capitol Records - in fairness, the label already had the Kingston Trio, and Phillips' group was perhaps just a little behind the curve of where public taste and radio programming were heading.Ultimately, Phillips' first marriage ended, as did the Journeymen, but his attempts at musical success continued. Phillips formed the New Journeymen with future screenwriter Marshall Brickman and a young model and singer named Michelle Gilliam; they didn't succeed any better, but Phillips and Gilliam married and they also started to write songs. One that they composed jointly during this period was a catchy tune with some potential that expressed an idealized vision.Meanwhile, working in a different realm of the musical spectrum was a Baltimore-born singer named Cassandra Elliot, who had become a big fish in a small pond - though Cass Elliot would have been the first to say that she was a pretty big fish in any pond - as part of New York's off-Broadway theater scene, and had made some noise in touring productions of The Music Man.
She's moved into folk music in partnership with Tim Rose - himself an ex-associate of the Smoothies. They worked as two-thirds of a trio called the Triumverate, whose third spot was subsequently filled by Nebraska-born folksinger James Hendricks. This group eventually became the Big 3 and hit it big at New York's Bitter End, and from there went on to a brief flurry of recording activity that yielded two LPs, a handful of singles, and a brace of television commercials.Eventually, the Big 3 evolved into the Mugwumps, whose ranks included Elliot, Hendricks, Zal Yanovsky, John Sebastian, and Denny Doherty, a veteran of the Colonials in the early '60s, who later rechristened themselves the Halifax Three - Doherty and Elliot, who were pretty impressive on their own, made a dazzling pair of voices together.
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The Mugwumps seemed to be on the edge of a new sound, mixing electric instruments played with ever more emphasis on folk-based material - this was concurrent with the West Coast activities of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby in the Byrds - but could never quite put together a sound that sold, even to the record labels, much less the public. They were foundering when Phillips decided to reactivate his trio as the New Journeymen and, with Brickman gone, recruited Doherty to sing some shows down in Washington, D.C. All of the pieces were almost all together in the closing days of 1964.Meanwhile, Cass Elliot was paying her bills by singing jazz, in Washington, D.C., no less. The New Journeymen might have gone it alone, except that Doherty brought his fellow members to see her perform. The quartet fell into place despite some resistance from John Phillips over Elliot's sheer size as well as her strong personality and (supposedly) her voice. Following a few ups and downs in personalities, a trip to the Caribbean (as immortalized later by the song 'Creeque Alley'), an accident that suddenly had Elliot hitting what Phillips said were the right notes, and some acid use and drug experimentation along the way, they all headed west in search of success.The group headed to California late in 1965 and was turned down by ex-Kingston Trio manager Frank Werber, whose group the We Five - with a vaguely similar sound to Phillips and company - was scoring big with its version of Sylvia Fricker's 'You Were on My Mind.'
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At the suggestion of Barry McGuire, late of the New Christy Minstrels and an old friend of Elliot's, who was just coming off of his biggest hit, 'Eve of Destruction' on Dunhill Records, the quartet auditioned for Lou Adler, the head of the label - their audition consisted of 'California Dreamin',' 'Monday, Monday,' and many of the other songs that ended up comprising their debut album. Adler signed them on the spot and their debut single, 'California Dreamin',' was out by the start of 1966 and shooting up the charts, with their album If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears coming up behind it.That album was one of the finest examples of what later became known as 'sunshine pop,' and it's still one of the best harmony vocal showcases in 1960s music. In addition to the two hit singles, 'California Dreamin' and 'Monday, Monday,' listeners could luxuriate in the radiant splendors of 'Go Where You Wanna Go,' 'Got a Feeling,' and eight more unabashed gems, and they reciprocated by lofting it to the number one spot on the charts and keeping it among the top-selling albums in the country for months. The Mamas & the Papas Gold is a two-disc, 32-track set that does an admirable job of mixing the major hits with well chosen album tracks. Unlike MCA's 1991 similar package Creeque Alley, solo tracks are ignored with the focus being only on the five studio albums recorded as a group: If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, The Mamas & the Papas, Deliver, The Papas & the Mamas and (thankfully) only one track from the contractual obligation swan song People Like Us. The remastered tracks bring out both the intricate harmonies and colorful musical arrangements of group mastermind John Phillips. Billy Altman's liner notes and several rare photos also add to the overall quality of the package.
Al Campbell. The best-sounding - the early Mamas and the Papas CDs were notoriously dreadful, sonically - and most comprehensive of the many Mamas and the Papas compilations. Greatest Hits proves why this band should be better known for their exquisite harmonies and mastery of pop hooks instead of the lurid tales of drug addiction and inter-band romances which were revealed much later. The only compilation which contains all of their Top 40 hits, from the classic debut 'California Dreamin' to the glorious light psychedelia of 'Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon),' plus a generous handful of album tracks, Greatest Hits is a perfect introduction to the retroactively named genre of sunshine pop, that folk-rock-based, acid-kissed gentle pop music of the late '60s. This may be all the Mamas and the Papas you'll need, but if you're a fan of '60s pop, you do need this. You can say the album's title two ways, and unfortunately, by the time of this 1971 reunion album, one of them was sadly incorrect.
When the Mamas And The Papas broke up in 1968, it was due to intra-band romantic entanglements and increasing drug use, but the fact that their patented brand of folk-rock-based close harmony sunshine pop was rapidly going out of fashion certainly didn't help.Cass Elliott was the only one who had any solo success, but somehow John and Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty were able to convince her to come back for this album. It was a commercial flop, but fans of the group have retroactively discovered it to be an interesting meld of sunshine pop and Laurel Canyon-style country rock. The title track, 'Snow Queen of Texas' and the lilting 'Pacific Coast Highway' are particular highlights. This is where fans of the group can sort of stop and settle down at last.
MCA Records had previously let the Mamas & the Papas' music out on CD in a trickle; the debut LP was upgraded and a compilation of remastered hits showed later in the decade, but the rest was left to languish. This two-CD set makes up for that neglect, assembling all four of the quartet's '60s albums on two CDs and augmenting them with the mono single versions of 'I Saw Her Again,' 'Words of Love,' and 'Creeque Alley,' plus the non-LP single 'Glad to Be Unhappy.' One just wants to luxuriate in the sound of this reissue and its little details, like the rhythm guitar on 'Do You Want to Dance' that cuts right through the air, the string basses on 'Go Where You Want to Go' that sound like they're just across the room, and the rest of the first album. The real keys to the value of this set, however, are the second and third LPs by the group, superb albums which were either never reissued on CD at all or never upgraded from the mid- to late '80s. The group's second album has never enjoyed as strong a reputation as its predecessor, possibly because of the painful and convoluted circumstances under which it was recorded (Michelle Phillips was fired and then reinstated a few weeks later, but a version of the cover does exist that features Phillips' temporary replacement, Jill Gibson, in the lineup).
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The songs may not quite match up to the selection or the sense of free experimentation that went into the first album, but coming from any other group, the contents of The Mamas & The Papas LP would have been considered a triumph. 'No Salt on Her Tail' and 'Trip, Stumble & Fall' could have been outtakes from the first album, while 'Dancing Bear' put them into Peter, Paul & Mary territory.
'Words of Love' didn't quite come up to the standard they'd set for themselves, but 'My Heart Stood Still' nearly succeeds in turning the Rodgers & Hart standard into a folk-rock piece of incomparable beauty. The whole second half of the disc is a revelation in sound, simply because apart from the hits, none of its material had shown up on CD before, and here it is with resolution so close that Joe Osborne's bass sounds like it's practically in the listener's lap. Cuts such as 'I Can't Wait' and 'Strange Young Girls' - although the latter is never cited as a strong point, it has a depth and richness in its appearance here that calls to mind textural echoes of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album - and 'Once Was a Time I Thought' (where they tread onto Spanky & Our Gang-cum-Manhattan Transfer territory) help make this set essential to virtually any fan of the group. The quartet's third album, Deliver, which is divided between the two CDs, is similarly improved in a startling upgrade from the mid-'80s CD that makes their version of 'My Girl,' in particular, sound gloriously radiant.
Their fourth album, Papas & Mamas, although never in the same league with the group's earlier records, can be considered nearly essential musically for the upgrade on 'Rooms,' 'Too Late,' 'Mansions,' and the classic 'Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon).' As an added attraction, in addition to the single mixes on three of their hits, the disc also features superb notes built around recollections by the surviving members of the group and longtime session musicians, such as Eric Hord. Bruce Eder. By the time the Mamas & the Papas recorded and released their third album, the group was continuing, in the words of singer Denny Doherty, 'on its own momentum.' Acrimonious personnel changes, rock stardom, fame, money, and drugs (among other factors) were taking their toll on the group's chemistry. Fortunately, this momentum is precisely the reason that the album succeeds. Buttressed by the singles 'Creeque Alley' (the sometimes hilarious story of how the group came together), 'Look Through My Window,' and the stupendous remake of 'Dedicated to the One I Love,' the album has some exquisite moments.
'Look Through My Window' is also one of the group's most realized recordings, and the cover of 'Twist and Shout' is an absolute killer. Much of the record, frankly, doesn't sound too different than the group's first two albums, but with the songwriting, vocal, and production excellence, why tamper with genius? The group felt so too, which is why this album is Michelle Phillips' personal favorite.
It's not too hard to see why. Matthew Greenwald.
Like any record company worth their salt, MCA knows a good gimmick when they see it, and when the millennium came around - well, the 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection wasn't too far behind. Supposedly, the millennium is a momentous occasion, but it's hard to feel that way when it's used as another excuse to turn out a budget-line series. But apart from the presumptuous title, 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection turns out to be a very good budget-line series. True, it's impossible for any of these brief collections to be definitive, but they're nevertheless solid samplers that don't feature a bad song in the bunch. For example, take the Mamas & the Papas' 20th Century volume - it's an irresistible 11-song summary of their MCA recordings. There may be a couple of noteworthy songs missing, but many of their best-known songs for the label are here, including 'California Dreamin',' 'Monday, Monday,' 'Creeque Alley,' 'Dedicated to the One I Love.'
'Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon,' 'Look Through My Window,' 'I Saw Her Again Last Night,' and Mama Cass' 'Make Your Own Kind of Music.' Serious fans will want something more extensive, but this is an excellent introduction for neophytes and a great sampler for casual fans, considering its length and price. That doesn't erase the ridiculousness of the series title, but the silliness is excusable when the music and the collections are good.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Sometimes art and events, personal or otherwise, converge on a point transcending the significance of either - a work achieves a relevance far beyond the seeming boundaries of the creation at hand. During the 1950s and 1960s, in music, it used to happen occasionally for Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, once or twice for the Byrds, and a few times for the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones.
For the Mamas & the Papas, it happened twice, with their first album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, and, on a more complex level, with this album - which was astonishing, given that they had a major upheaval in their membership in the midst of recording it. The Mamas & the Papas (also sometimes referred to as 'Cass- John-Michelle-Denny,' which might well have been the official title until that lineup started to shift) was recorded over a period of almost four months, in the wake of the massive success of their first two singles and the debut album, issued in February of 1966.
The members were riding a whirlwind in the spring of 1966, which showed - along with a lot more - in this album's unintentionally revealing cover photo, depicting all four of them framed in a window, the other three standing while Michelle Phillips reclined in front, bisecting the trio behind her. A collection like this one can't help but underscore what an amazing group the Mamas & the Papas were in their prime, and songs like 'Monday, Monday,' the immortal 'California Dreamin',' the autobiographical 'Creeque Alley,' and the gorgeous, haunting 'Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)' were simply great singles full of wonderful (and at times achingly spooky) vocals and harmonies and superb arrangements.
A few key tracks are absent here, including the infectious 'Go Where You Wanna Go,' but this is still a decent introduction to a brilliant vocal group. Steve Leggett. They weren't the most important folk-rock group of the mid-'60s; the Byrds and others produced more enduring music.
Yet the Mamas & the Papas were undoubtedly the most commercially successful folk-rock group of their time, racking up an astonishing nine Top 30 hits in little more than a year and a half. This 43-song double CD is by far the most comprehensive document of their legacy. It draws most heavily from their two 1966 albums (nine songs originate from their debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, alone), when John Phillips' songwriting talent had yet to exhaust itself. Beyond the hits, the material is variable. Quite a few album tracks - especially 'Got a Feelin',' 'Straight Shooter,' 'Go Where You Wanna Go,' 'Once Was a Time I Thought,' and their cover of Lennon/McCartney's 'I Call Your Name' - were strong enough to have been hits under their own steam. Their slowed-down, California-ized versions of rock oldies were more problematic.
And there's no doubt that their later material is less spirited and memorable than their initial burst of glory. The set includes various late-'60s and '70s solo recordings by each of the group's members (including small hit singles by John Phillips and Cass Elliott). Perhaps the most intriguing rarities are from the members' pre-Mamas days. These include commercial folk by the Big Three (featuring Cass Elliott) and primitive pop-folk-rock by the Mugwumps (including Elliott, Denny Doherty, and future Lovin' Spoonful member Zal Yanovsky). Richie Unterberger. The Mamas & the Papas were an amazing vocal group in their prime, and songs like 'Monday, Monday,' the immortal 'California Dreamin',' 'Go Where You Wanna Go,' the autobiographical 'Creeque Alley,' and the gorgeous, haunting 'Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)' were simply great singles full of wonderful (and at times achingly spooky) vocals and harmonies and superb arrangements.
The key tracks are here, with little filler, making this a fine compilation for those who just want the high points, although there's a good deal more to the story, of course. Steve Leggett.