The Mamas & the Papas

The Mamas & the Papas的艺人档案 小简介 二十世纪六十年代中期，The Mamas ＆ the Papas在正出现的反文化潮流和广阔的流行市场间搭起了一座桥梁。在他们热情奔放、和谐美妙的音乐中，以民谣摇滚为基音，伴随着他们独特的形象和生活方式，因而非常易于被推广接受。1964年，乐队在加州成立。当时的成员为John Phillips和妻子Michelle、Cass Elliott、Denny Doherty。1965年，乐队受雇于Dunhill唱片公司，负责给公司旗下艺人伴唱。有感於该乐队的努力工作和John Phillips超凡的作曲天赋——“California Dreamin‘”(加州之梦)，公司和他们签了约。乐队在1966年推出了单曲“California Dreaming”，在排行榜排名第4，共售出了100万张。同年，“Monday, Monday”、“I Saw Her Again”都先后进入排行榜前5名。 尽管音乐在当时的西海岸反文化潮流的冲击下变得十分抽象，但The Mamas ＆ the Papas却将大众流行化和严肃音乐的内涵在他们的作品中巧妙地结合起来。1967年，乐队因在“Monday, Monday”中的出色演绎获得了当年葛莱美最佳创作、年度最佳流行乐队两个奖项，6月，乐队参加了西海岸举办的蒙特利流行音乐节。 The leading California-based vocal group of the 60s, the Mamas & the Papas epitomized the ethos of the 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. The groups success was as extraordinary as it was brief, and onlookers may well wonder what went wrong with a performing group that seemed to have the world at its feet for all of two years. The irony behind the Mamas & the Papas story is that the same forces that made it possible for them to create extraordinary music together also made it impossible for them to stay together for more than a short time. The groups founder and de facto leader, John Phillips, born in 1935, was actually quite a bit older than most of the figures who emerged as rock stars during the middle and late 1960s. He was more of Elvis Presleys generation, the product of a chaotic home life with a difficult childhood and adolescence, and seemed to be headed for life as a low-level delinquent until he was scared straight, and then had been headed for the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD. In the background, however, was music, the guitar, and the sounds of Elvis Presley, the Platters, Teresa Brewer, and everyone else charting records in the mid-50s. He eventually entered music professionally, while his first marriage produced two children (one of them future actress MacKenzie Phillips). Phillips first music forays moved from pop to soft jazz and finally into folk music, through groups such as the Smoothies and the Journeymen. The latter group, a trio with Dick Weissman and Scott McKenzie, was one of the most promising small ensembles of the early-60s folk music boom, but it never connected with the public despite being signed to Capitol Records — in fairness, the label already had the Kingston Trio, and Phillips group was perhaps just a little behind the curve of where public taste and radio programming were heading. Ultimately, Phillips first marriage ended, as did the Journeymen, but his attempts at musical success continued. Phillips formed the New Journeymen with future screenwriter Marshall Brickman and a young model and singer named Michelle Gilliam; they didnt succeed any better, but Phillips and Gilliam married and they also started to write songs. One that they composed jointly during this period was a catchy tune with some potential that expressed an idealized vision. Meanwhile, working in a different realm of the musical spectrum was a Baltimore-born singer named Cassandra Elliot, who had become a big fish in a small pond — though Cass Elliot would have been the first to say that she was a pretty big fish in any pond — as part of New Yorks off-Broadway theater scene, and had made some noise in touring productions of The Music Man. Shes moved into folk music in partnership with Tim Rose — himself an ex-associate of the Smoothies. They worked as two-thirds of a trio called the Triumverate, whose third spot was subsequently filled by Nebraska-born folksinger James Hendricks. This group eventually became the Big 3 and hit it big at New Yorks Bitter End, and from there went on to a brief flurry of recording activity that yielded two LPs, a handful of singles, and a brace of television commercials. Eventually, the Big 3 evolved into the Mugwumps, whose ranks included Elliot, Hendricks, Zal Yanovsky, John Sebastian, and Denny Doherty, a veteran of the Colonials in the early 60s, who later rechristened themselves the Halifax Three — Doherty and Elliot, who were pretty impressive on their own, made a dazzling pair of voices together. The Mugwumps seemed to be on the edge of a new sound, mixing electric instruments played with ever more emphasis on folk-based material — this was concurrent with the West Coast activities of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby in the Byrds — but could never quite put together a sound that sold, even to the record labels, much less the public. They were foundering when Phillips decided to reactivate his trio as the New Journeymen and, with Brickman gone, recruited Doherty to sing some shows down in Washington, D.C. All of the pieces were almost all together in the closing days of 1964. Meanwhile, Cass Elliot was paying h