Here is a perf. of "CA Dreamin'" on the Hullaballoo showcomplete with dancing girls (which the Papas seem to enjoy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emuiQkGMc9k
― lukevalentine, Thursday, 18 February 2010 03:19 (fourteen years ago) link
faced with the choice i'd much rather have hung out in the 60s taking acid with Cass and Michelle rather than say Dylan. i mean they look like a lot of fun right? http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/sadeyedlady89/Michelle/Rock-Roll-059-Cass-Elliot-Michelle-.jpg
― piscesx, Monday, 4 October 2010 22:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Any plans of reissuing their four 60s albums. I know the debut album was reissued in 1998 or so, but I would still love a reissue/remaster of all four, with bonus tracks etc. There was a complete anthology released a few years ago, but I believe it is now replaced with a box set that is not as complete.
― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Monday, 4 October 2010 23:19 (thirteen years ago) link
The Complete Anthology is still available from Amazon in the US - it's an import from Europe so you should be able to find it. If not, the quality of the first four records on the 2-disc All The Leaves Are Brown anthology is excellent, and you get a few mono singles as a bonus.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 4 October 2010 23:56 (thirteen years ago) link
No Salt on Her Tail - this alone makes them classic
― sonofstan, Tuesday, 5 October 2010 17:37 (thirteen years ago) link
faced with the choice i'd much rather have hung out in the 60s taking acid with Cass and Michelle rather than say Dylan. i mean they look like a lot of fun right?
Somewhere I've got a Life or Look magazine w/an article on the group when they were peaking. In it, John claimed that they'd been in talks to do a film with Fellini. He felt it was a good pairing because "after all, we kind of are 8 1/2." Judging from stories since told, he was sorta right.
― Your cousin, Marvin Cobain (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 01:49 (thirteen years ago) link
mama overjoyed in the presence of food
― buzza, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 03:26 (thirteen years ago) link
Just stumbled over this terrific clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aYAUE6is7I&feature=related
― clemenza, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 19:49 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58hY1OtBlDQ
― buzza, Sunday, 10 June 2012 08:32 (eleven years ago) link
"monday monday" is one weird-ass piece of songwriting. they step through four keys in the course of the song, going up a half step from the "monday monday" part to the "every other day" part, then another half step when they return for the next "monday monday" part and yet another half step when they go back to "every other day." but that's not the weird part. that's just '60s pop fun. the weird part is that the second chord of each "monday monday" part is the same chord as the second chord of the accompanying "every other day" part even though the parts are a half-step apart. that chord really shouldn't work in both parts. but it does. wikipedia says the song is in chromatic-minor and features the neapolitan chord. i have no idea what any of that means except that the neapolitan chord makes me hungry for ice cream. and that i love everything about this song.
― fact checking cuz, Monday, 25 June 2012 07:10 (eleven years ago) link
That was one of the best posts I have ever read.
― banjoboy, Monday, 25 June 2012 09:35 (eleven years ago) link
Cass Elliot died 40 years ago today. Wonderful voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_phmZG9bMY
― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 July 2014 08:00 (nine years ago) link
There's a little bit on Mama Cass's death in this John Phillips documentary around 41:00, including some emotional reaction from Phillips concerning her voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTbLds3BAPM
― clemenza, Tuesday, 29 July 2014 22:01 (nine years ago) link
I've been really into her post-group solo albums lately. It's a shame they're so overlooked.
― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 30 July 2014 02:21 (nine years ago) link
I only have one of her own LPs, but love this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-4_uyKrH1U
― clemenza, Wednesday, 30 July 2014 02:58 (nine years ago) link
Hmmmmm, not convinced by them tbh, material often isn't worthy of her and, anyway, seems like she could never work out quite what or where she was supposed to be... musically. Interestingly the songs written by her sister are very often the best things on her solo albums.
― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 July 2014 16:43 (nine years ago) link
I remember the news of Cass's death... I was visiting Washington DC with my dad when I heard, just before Nixon resigned. She did a lot of TV variety shows in the solo period.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 30 July 2014 16:48 (nine years ago) link
There's an interview that goes with the clip I posted, from the Mike Douglas Show, where she's really charming and funny but noticeably coy about revealing her real name, I suppose being Jewish was still too 'ethnic' for the world at large?
― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 July 2014 16:54 (nine years ago) link
This is nice. Gotta cut some slack for the duet partner, seeing as he wrote it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKdknYaSHgE
I'm sure they wanted to mention Nixon by name but couldn't.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 30 July 2014 23:48 (nine years ago) link
I read "California Dreaming" - a graphic novel about Cass's life leading up to joining the Mamas & the Papas. This is really very good! The best graphic novel/comic book biography I've read. Unlike some other such efforts, the characters here are very well drawn and quite deep. Cass sounds like such a cool person. Good story too - about persistence and being talented with life challenges and all that. Makes you wish you could've met her. Totally recommend this if you are remotely interested in her or the band. It's a fancy hardback book that you can probably get in a decent library like I did.
― everything, Monday, 17 July 2017 23:15 (six years ago) link
Just watched Monterey Pop on the big screen last night , and they were glorious at that show.
Plus the shot of Mama Cass's reaction (in the audience, mind blown) at the end of Janis's "Ball and Chain" was the highlight of the documentary for me... not least because it echoed exactly what I was feeling.
― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Tuesday, 18 July 2017 01:52 (six years ago) link
Makes you wish you could've met her.
Every bit of footage I've ever seen of her, whether performing or being interviewed, she just radiates friendliness. Tried to find this priceless Sullivan clip where Ed basically blanks out during the post-performance banter, much to the amusement of Cass and the group, but can't--it's in a John Phillips documentary that's disappeared from YouTube.
― clemenza, Thursday, 20 July 2017 02:11 (six years ago) link
House across the street is blasting California Dreaming by the Mamas and Papas right now and it sounds so good. Even floating through the air from a slightly cracked kitchen window, it sounds great.
― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, 20 July 2017 03:17 (six years ago) link
Outtake from the first album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPis-2HP3Ow
― timellison, Thursday, 20 July 2017 03:37 (six years ago) link
seems like she could never work out quite what or where she was supposed to be...musically.
I think the intent of that first album is quite clear, actually - a sort of affinity for a particular type of contemporary songwriting. I find it to be pretty cohesive. The album it reminds me most of is Chelsea Girl.
― timellison, Thursday, 20 July 2017 04:21 (six years ago) link
brotherlovesdub OTM
― Paisley Window Pane (Ross), Thursday, 20 July 2017 05:08 (six years ago) link
(xp) Yes, but she abandoned that approach pretty quickly, I guess because it didn't sell.
― weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 July 2017 07:42 (six years ago) link
The Mann-Weill singles that followed are fantastic, though. Especially the first two. They have to be some of her most virtuosic performances.
― timellison, Saturday, 22 July 2017 01:35 (six years ago) link
I feel like putting The Papas and the Mamas on that 'last classic album you were knocked out by' thread (though I don't really know what its reputation is). That thing is something.
― timellison, Saturday, 22 July 2017 02:13 (six years ago) link
When I went looking for that John Phillips documentary the other day, discovered something I didn't know: Denny Doherty released a couple of solo albums in the early '70s. Checked Amazon, a little pricey, so I explored other options...sorry Denny Doherty estate.
The first one, Watcha Gonna Do, has a cover of "Got a Feelin'," my favourite Mamas & Papas song. You'd think that one would be a cinch, but Doherty's version is just okay--the exaggeratedly deep voice he pulls out for some of it is off-putting. The best thing on there for me is the weird Hank Williams cover, "Hey Good Lookin'," that was evidently unfinished. "Tuesday Morning"'s pretty good too. The second album, Waiting for a Song, didn't make an impression.
The documentary is Straight Shooter. Besides the Sullivan clip I mention above, there's another really sad clip of John and Michelle guesting on Doherty's Canadian TV show in the late '70s. John's in the throes of heroin addiction, and as he starts rambling during some post-song banter, the other two look mortified.
― clemenza, Sunday, 23 July 2017 03:07 (six years ago) link
"Mansions," you guys...
― timellison, Thursday, 5 October 2017 04:44 (six years ago) link
Cloudy waters cast no reflectionImages of beauty lie there stagnantVibrations bounce in no directionAnd lie there shattered into fragments
― timellison, Saturday, 7 October 2017 02:21 (six years ago) link
classic - i saw her againmonday morningcalifornia dreaming
don't know much else tbh
― stoker (Ross), Wednesday, 27 June 2018 20:55 (five years ago) link
― fact checking cuz, Monday, 25 June 2012 07:10 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― banjoboy, Monday, 25 June 2012 09:35 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm
― under a mand'rin tsar (darraghmac), Thursday, 28 June 2018 11:44 (five years ago) link
Watched the Criterion 'Monterey Pop' blu ray last week; Cass's dumbstruck-and-awestruck reaction to Janis Joplin is the absolute highlight.
― piscesx, Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:58 (five years ago) link
the weird part is that the second chord of each "monday monday" part is the same chord as the second chord of the accompanying "every other day" part even though the parts are a half-step apart. that chord really shouldn't work in both parts. but it does.
I think it works because it's actually, for a moment there, the tonic chord.
― timellison, Thursday, 28 June 2018 17:12 (five years ago) link
Whoever plays her in Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood is good--you just see her (excitedly, theatrically leading Sharon Tate and Michelle Phillips onto the dance floor at the Playboy Mansion), but there's real presence in the way she bounds onto the floor. She shows up in Rocketman, too, or at least her name does; Elton and Bernie Taupin head over to a party at Mama Cass's after their first Troubadour show. She's widely seen as the number-one central figure of Laurel Canyon in the late '60s. Someone should make a real documentary on her (there've been a couple of TV things, and another one on the whole band).
― clemenza, Saturday, 3 August 2019 23:04 (four years ago) link
Cass’s version of Judee Sill’s “Jesus Was a Cross Maker” off her S/T album fucking owns.
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 15 February 2020 15:49 (four years ago) link
^ yeah! and a cover of "Disney Girls" on the same album? amazing
― swing out sister: live in new donk city (geoffreyess), Monday, 3 May 2021 03:33 (three years ago) link
Michelle Phillips' birthday (77). Three of the most beautiful music-related moments on film ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP7OKxjObNo
― clemenza, Friday, 4 June 2021 21:14 (two years ago) link
"dedicated to the one i love" is a tiktok trend!
https://www.tiktok.com/@godsbigrod/video/6965170299545390341?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Friday, 4 June 2021 21:17 (two years ago) link
Michelle's birthday today, 79.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A5M0YaUkOY
(Yes--my favorite song by them.)
― clemenza, Sunday, 4 June 2023 22:46 (eleven months ago) link
Oops--meant to post a different clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35R47Ws_Mh8
― clemenza, Sunday, 4 June 2023 22:47 (eleven months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2710NcijHY
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 3 December 2023 20:47 (five months ago) link