I sawe a video of them playing at the Monterey festival. I hadn’t realized what an amazing stage presence Mama Cass had. She was basically the stage show all by herself, while the rest of the band looked uncomfortable and watched her lead. It was already a great concert musically, but she made the show fun. I know it wasn’t like that when they were offstage, but man, Mama Cass wasn’t just a musician, she was a performer. Great band.
Except that it’s not a fact. She died of a heart attack, and a ham sandwich had nothing do with it except as an urban legend.
It’s moderately funny as a joke, but tragic in real life. (And I doubt one bite would have saved Karen Carpenter either, if we’re speaking literally.)
This is quite unusual, and I’m probably going to jinx it, but I can’t think of any Cafe Society thread about a particular band, song, or what-have-you that has not been crashed by some naysaying nabob telling us all how dumb we are and that we have no taste. Even the Patsy Cline thread wasn’t this unanimous.
I dig the Mamas and the Papas at the Trip, Sunset Strip in L.A.
Creeque Alley was named after a famous street in the town of Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas, VI. The group spent several months there (as did I) hanging out, smoking dope and writing songs, and getting in trouble with the local cops. Cass Elliot was born Ellen Naomi Cohen.
I recall a documentary in which it was said that the main thing that got Cass Elliott into the group was a quart bottle of liquid LSD she brought with her when visiting them on an island somewhere in the Caribbean …
No need, of course, to mention that she died in 1974 in the same flat (“apartment”), Flat 9, 12 Curzon Place W1 - owned by Harry Nilsson - in which 4 years later Keith Moon of The Who would also snuff it. So I won’t.
There’s a Mamas & The Papas video (possibly for “Monday Monday”?) where Cass looks incredibly like Monica Lewinski.
I used to enjoy the music of the Mamas and the Papas myself for a while. Even my dad, who thinks rock music is the spawn of Satan, had the album where they’re all piled up in a bathtub on the cover.
Then I saw the “Behind the Music” bit where John Phillips talked about walking out on his wife and kids in New York to marry Michelle. For some reason his wife left, too, and his kids were left alone in the house for something like a couple of months with no supervision or money. We all make mistakes, but an older Phillips had no regrets - “It was the sixties, man, everything was groovy, it was wild” - words to that effect. He also showed his daughter Mackenzie how to roll a joint when she was 10 and injected her with liquid cocaine at 17.
None of that has anything to do with the music, but it makes Phillips an execrable human being in my book. I decided I’d rather live without hearing another Mamas and Papas album before buying anything that douchebag was selling.
I was waiting for that.
I’ve been a fan of theirs since the 60s, when I saw them perform 2 or 3 times. Recently, my mother (age 92) asked me, “Have you ever heard of a group called the Mamas and the Papas?” Apparently she never heard of them (or more likely forgot) til she saw “Behind the Music” and became an instant fan.
By the way, there’s something weird with the sound of “I Saw Her Again” that I could never identify or explain. I just sounds weird to me. Does anyone else hear this, or does anyone know whether it was recorded differently than the other songs?
I’d have to agree with you on the type of person he was. But he’s room temperature now, so it’s moot. You can buy his albums, he ain’t gettin’ a cent.
Another vote for “Watch the Behind the Music” special. The Mamas and the Papas are long overdue for a movie. Most eye-popping moment: Jill Gibson suddenly replacing the out-of-favor Michelle on the album cover (and then she’s gone herself).
Watch the Biography of Mackenzie Phillips* and you’ll hate John as a person. In addition to his affairs with underaged girls while married to her mother, he actively encouraged Mackenzie’s drug addiction and that of his son, even teaching her how to shoot heroin more effectively. (At one point Michelle [who is not Mackenzie’s mother] came by the house after the divorce and John’s remarriage to pick up Chynna from a visit; she ended up taking John’s younger daughters (Tamerlane and Bijou) home with her as well because John and his wife were too drugged up to feed or care for the kids.)
Here’s a shout out to Cass’s version of John Lennon’s I Call Your Name.
Cass would never reveal the true father of her daughter Owen, leading to much speculation (rumors flying from John Lennon to Dennis Doherty) but it was finally this summer learned that he was
Former assistant FBI Director W. Mark Felt
You must see the film Beautiful Thing, btw, as it has a largely Mama Cass soundtrack. (One of the characters is obsessed with Mama Cass.)
On the VH-1 special they talked to David Crosby. He said Cass did some backup vocals on this album:
Just a little trivia to pass along.
But they basically died the same way, from eating disorders. 
OH maaaaaaaaaannn, Mama Cass really flew in “Words of Love”. I still hum that (inadequately) in moments of stress. It seems to help.