Research Paper On The Mamas And The Papas

The Mamas and the Papas played a major role in the pop scene of Southern California in the mid to late Sixties. The group formed out of the folk music revival of the late Fifties and early Sixties. The members included John Phillips, who had been a member of the folk trio called the Journeymen; Cass Elliot came aboard after a stint in the Big Three, while Denny Doherty played with the Halifax Three. Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty also played together in the Mugwumps, which also included John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky who later formed the Lovin’ Spoonful. The group's founder was John Phillips, born in 1935. John’s musical beginnings were much like that of Elvis Presley as he had a chaotic home life with a difficult childhood and adolescence.
Denny Doherty thought so much of Elliot that he had John, and Michelle come watch one of her performances. They formed the group despite John Phillips’s second thoughts about Elliot’s size, strong personality, and even her voice. In 1965, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty traveled to St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands, and Cass Elliot met them there for a rehearsal session. They soon decided to relocate to Los Angeles, where they signed a recording contract with Lou Adler and his Dunhill label. Two of the songs from their audition with Lou Alder and Dunhill records were "California Dreamin'," and "Monday, Monday.” The audition went so well that Adler signed them on the spot and their debut single, "California Dreamin'," was one of their biggest and most well-known hits. The group briefly called themselves the Magic Circle, before taking the name the Mamas and the Papas. They got this name by Cass, who was mouthing off at the TV when an interview with the Hells Angels came on and one of them said something like, "We call our women mamas". So Cass said, “Well, we got Mamas in our group and we got Papas!" So, John said yeah we could be called the
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, their first album, was monumental in the West Coast vocal-group sound. It contains “California Dreamin’,” which helped trigger the westward migration of rootless young people during the hippie era. Below is a list of their studio albums and their ranks on the major charts: They signed to produce five albums with Dunhill Records but would only release four albums before breaking up. Their final performance was on the Ed Sullivan show in 1967, right before they produced album number four (The Papas & the Mamas). The band broke up shortly after the fourth album when John Phillips made a derogatory remark about Cass Elliot in front of a room full of people (which included members of the Rolling Stones) while they were in Europe at a Dunhill Records party. Cass Elliot had a successful solo career before her death from a heart attack in 1974. John became a notorious drug addict and passed on from a heart attack in 2001. Michelle went on to become an actress something she always wanted and is still alive Denny Doherty passed in 2007 from complications arising from abdominal aneurysm