Latest Release
- FEB 14, 2023
- 1 Song
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- Deliver · 1967
- The Papas & The Mamas · 1966
- Mama's Big Ones · 1971
- Deliver · 1967
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- The Mamas & the Papas · 1966
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
Essential Albums
- It’s high irony that this southern California singing group would become world-famous for their harmonies, considering that once this debut album was in the can the four members of the group were anything but harmonious with each other. Leader John Phillips rehearsed the group for months in the Virgin Islands before committing these carefully sculpted tunes to tape and the craftsmanship shows. Thanks in no small part to this well-received debut album that combined easy-flowing folk-rock with vocal arrangements more associated with doo-wop groups from the previous era, 1966 was a watershed year for AM pop radio. “California Dreaming” and “Monday, Monday” became immediate hits, while the group’s inventive approach to other well-known tunes such as “Spanish Harlem,” “Do You Wanna Dance” and “The ‘In’ Crowd” made them noted interpretive artists as well. A nightclub rendition of the Beatles’ “I Call Your Name,” P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri’s “You Baby” and several Phillips originals (“Somebody Groovy,” “Go Where You Wanna Go,” covered by the 5th Dimension) round things out in exemplary mid-60s form.
Albums
- 1971
- 1967
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- Four years, five albums, and a whole lot of history.
Compilations
- 2005
- 1998
About The Mamas & The Papas
With hazy melodies and rich vocal arrangements, folk-pop foursome The Mamas & The Papas were a touchstone of California’s psychedelic music scene in the late 1960s. • Husband-wife couple John and Michelle Phillips founded the band with Denny Doherty, who suggested adding his former Mugwumps bandmate Cass Elliot. • The Mamas and the Papas first recorded together as backing singers on singer Barry McGuire’s 1965 album This Precious Time, though they had released their own debut single, “Go Where You Wanna Go,” by the time McGuire’s LP came out. • Featuring the singles “Monday, Monday” and “California Dreamin’,” the group’s first album, 1966’s If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200. • Turbulent interpersonal relations prompted the group to fire Michelle Phillips in June 1966. Jill Gibson replaced her for three months until Phillips rejoined the group in August. • Though The Mamas & The Papas released five studio albums and 17 singles between 1966 and 1971, the group was effectively over by the end of 1968, when Elliot left to resume her solo career. • The band’s final album, 1971’s People Like Us, was a contractual obligation that the musicians made piecemeal, rarely recording together in the studio. • Elliot died in 1974, and Michelle Phillips began a successful acting career. John Phillips formed The New Mamas and The Papas in 1980 with two of his children, Jeffrey and MacKenzie Phillips, and Doherty. The latter-day group never recorded an album.
- ORIGIN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1965
- GENRE
- Pop