So, I had a few beers and watched a Mamas and Papas DVD. Did anyone ever have a voice that came close to Denny Doherty? Normally when you think of the Mamas and the Papas you think of Cass Elliott (well I do).
And for that matter, a band that lasted for 2 and a half years did some outstanding work.
That was an era of surprisingly good singers. In addition to both Denny and Cass, there were Mark Voman and Howard Kyle of the Turtles (aka, Flo and Eddie); a lot who came from the folk-rock end of the spectrum, including John Denver, Kenny Rogers and Gordon Lightfoot; some soft-rockers like Gary Puckett and Motown artists like Marvin Gaye.
Of course, at the top of the list, there’s Karen Carpenter.
Yeah, Cass was the bomb, but so was Denny.
And Karen Carpenter – could rip your heart out, man. I loved John Denver, too, but he’s not quitequitequite up there as a singer – close, though.
The Mamas and the Papas were amazing, live, and i’m so glad I’m old enough to have seen them. Of course I had a big ol’ crush on John, so didn’t pay much attention to Denny.
No aficionado on them am I, but damn do I love the line, “And I got down on my knees, and I began to pray”.
That line sounds cool as heck, and I’ve been known to cycle back in that song so I can hear that line over and over a bunch of times before I let the song continue on.
I always heard it as “pretend to pray” which made more sense to me…
I checked a couple of sites and “pretend to pray” is correct. I also thought it was “began to pray.”
“Monday, Monday” was one of my favorites. I’m thinking spring, 1966.
In the doco, they interviewed John Phillips and he was talking about writing California Dreaming. Seemingly it was terribly cold that year in New York and he stumbled into a church but not to pray. He wrote the song although Michelle Phillips is also credited. Well, she wrote it down while he dictated it.
Here’s the NPR website on “California Dreamin’,” which contains a lot of interesting links:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/californiadreamin/
The Wikipedia entry on the song is also useful.
Cicero, what is a “doco”? I’ve never heard the story that John was inspired by an actual visit to a church. Do you have a cite? (O.K., you’re going to tell me that the doco is the cite, but, again, what is a “doco”?)
I think that the main inspiration was Michelle’s complaining about the cold winter of 1963, her first time in New York. She grew up in southern California and in Mexico and wasn’t used to the weather. The cold didn’t particularly bother John, who was an Marine brat who grew up mostly in Alexandia, Virginia. It didn’t particularly bother Cass, who also grew up mostly in Alexandia, although she didn’t know John from there. It sure didn’t bother Denny, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Sorry, doco = documentary.
It was on the Biography Channel.
Thanks, Cicero. There’s another good documentary about the Mamas and the Papas. It was shown as an episode of the program Behind the Music on the music channel VH1.