How The Mamas & The Papas Made ‘California Dreamin’’ a Reality
At 60, the sunshine pop titans’ debut album retains its glow
The Mamas & The Papas had no way of knowing that they were arriving at the exact right point in music history.
But when their debut LP appeared in early 1966, it put them in the perfect spot to define and rule the roost of a new pop paradigm. And 60 years later, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears still captures that mid ‘60s West coast sound like little else.
The Beach Boys had already put harmony-heavy L.A. sunshine pop on the map, but they had yet to turn it into high art with the release of Pet Sounds. Likewise, The Byrds had recently helped to foist folk rock upon an eager public but hadn’t yet gone “Eight Miles High.” In that liminal space between American pop/rock’s initial maturation and its aesthetic elevation, a quartet turned up to blend harmony pop, folk rock and sophisticated songwriting into something singular enough to mark them as innovators but universal enough to make them stars.
Like a lot of their peers (David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, et al), John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot, and Denny Doherty had taken their turn on the folk scene in the first half of the ‘60s, when earnest ballads and clean-cut acoustic troubadours were all the rage. But after The Beatles busted things open, how could they resist the call of rock ‘n’ roll?
Unlike The Byrds, Beach Boys, Beau Brummels and the like, they were strictly a vocal group and not a self-contained band. But hell, the early Byrds and Beach Boys recordings are full of Wrecking Crew session cats anyhow. And part of The Mamas & The Papas’ genius was the way they created a new kind of harmony vocal sound that was miles beyond The Kingston Trio and their crowd, one that fit organically and seamlessly with contemporary pop/rock backing.
Crucially, theirs was a mixed-gender vocal blend, something that would become much more common in the wake of their success (see the subsequent rise of Spanky & Our Gang, The Peppermint Rainbow, The Cowsills, etc.), but was still uncommon outside of folk music at that point. Even their album cover was somewhat trailblazing in its own odd way. With the group all crowded into a bathtub for the front cover photograph, naturally there was a toilet pictured next to them. This modest bit of bathroom iconography raised the hackles of the defenders of decency among record retailers and was variously obscured and cropped out in later pressings. (Even the Stones would still be facing opposition on that score a couple of years later with the Beggars Banquet cover.)
For all the arrows in the group’s quiver when they started out, it might seem in retrospect like they still hedged their bets a bit by opting to cover a handful of hits alongside John Phillips’s original tunes. (Naturally, they couldn’t have guessed how much hay they’d be making with the latter). But in fact, every album in the quartet’s discography would end up including some outside material, so they must have just realized from the start how completely their vocal signature transformed anything they lent their lungs to.
This time around, that transformation extended to everything from The Beatles’ “I Call Your Name” to Ben E. King’s Jerry Lieber/Phil Spector-penned classic “Spanish Harlem.” By the time The Mamas & The Papas were done with them, they sounded neither like Liverpool nor New York City.
The sound they were serving up had just as much to do with producer/label boss Lou Adler as with the group itself. Besides bringing in the Wrecking Crew (Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn, etc.) to provide some rock ‘n’ roll punch, Adler sweetened “Monday, Monday,” “Go Where You Wanna Go,” and a couple of the cover tunes with full-blown string orchestrations, adding an extra dash of pop appeal. His production maintained just the right balance between the streetwise and the cinematic, and in that moment just before the counterculture turned psychedelic, The Mamas & The Papas were all things to all people—accessible enough for the “straights” but still hip enough for the blossoming youth culture.
VIDEO: The Mamas and the Papas perform “California Dreamin'” on The Ed Sullivan Show
Speaking of that youth culture, it didn’t hurt a bit that the album’s first single, “California Dreamin’,” turned out to be the quintessential siren song luring the fledgling flower children of the world to the scene that had begun brewing in the Golden State. It was the first real hippie anthem, and at its core it was entirely different from Scott McKenzie’s 1967 hit “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair.”
Written by John Phillips and produced by Phillips and Adler, “San Francisco” may have seemed ostensibly similar, but it was essentially a calculated PR move by Phillips to grease the wheels for the Monterey Pop Festival (more on that in a moment). “California Dreamin’,” on the other hand, is a timeless, haunting tune full of longing and emotional unrest, where the Pacific sunshine is only dimly glimpsed from a frosty shadowland. A ghostly flute solo from jazz great Bud Shank doesn’t do the track any harm either. Guess which tune still stands up today.
From that enduring career-maker to the hushed “I’ve Got a Feelin’;” syncopated, guitar-centric rockers like “Straight Shooter” and “Somebody Groovy;” and widescreen numbers like “Monday, Monday” and “Spanish Harlem,” the airborne, interlocking voices of Doherty, Elliot, and the Phillipses make a magic bond with Adler’s production to provide the soundtrack to a golden period in pop culture.
It was too good to last. Between internecine troubles and changing tastes, The Mamas & The Papas’ reign was destined to be short-lived. After ‘68, their run was pretty much done. But they skyrocketed to the forefront of things with shocking speed. Just about a year after their debut’s release, John Phillips was co-organizing the Monterey Pop Festival, the game-changing event at which his group would headline. And while they did some fantastic things afterwards, the bulk of their rep rests on this record.
Before the recently announced Cass Elliot biopic comes out, pick up on this crucial component of her history if you haven’t already.
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Great article about a great ole-timey group. It’s hard to overlook a “cover-to-cover” album where every song is as good as the last. Nice shout out to The Wrecking Crew – much respect!