[1] Dancing In The Street (Gaye/Hunter/Stevenson) - 3:48
[2] I Call Your Name (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:37
[3] Monday, Monday (Phillips) - 3:24
[4] Look Through My Window (Phillips) - 3:34
[6] California Dreamin' (Phillips/Phillips) - 2:40
[7] Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Andre/Kahn/Schwandt) - 3:13
[8] Words Of Love (Phillips) - 2:15
[9] I Saw Her Again Last Night (Doherty/Phillips) - 3:14
[10] Spanish Harlem (Leiber/Spector) - 3:16
[11] Glad To Be Unhappy (Hart/Rodgers) - 1:43
[12] Do You Wanna Dance - 2:58
[13] Dedicated To The One I Love (Bass/Pauling) - 2:59
[14] Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming (Phillips) - 3:24
[15] For The Love Of Ivy - 3:54
[16] Creeque Alley (Gilliam/Phillips) - 3:49
The leading California-based vocal group of the '60s, the Mamas &
the Papas epitomized the ethos of 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.
Founder and leader John Phillips came out of early rock roots and a
partly successful folk career, as did Cass Elliott and Denny Doherty,
while Phillips' wife Michelle was an ex-model who also sang. They got
together out of several failed folk groups just as the music was going
electric, pulled up stakes in New York and headed west, where they
signed with Lou Adler and wowed the world with a song called
"California Dreamin'."
Phillips was a pop poet with a commercial edge, and a good arranger.
The group had enviable chart success, lived well, and indulged
themselves lavishly yet retained credibility with the counterculture.
But it all came apart in a couple of years, as the quartet's
intertwining romantic entanglements, coupled with their chemical
excesses (detailed in separate books by John and Michelle Phillips),
strangled their ability to work. By 1971 they were a fond memory,
although a reconstituted version of the quartet has done well on the
oldies circuit in the late '80s and early '90s.
