Phillips, John Edmund Andrew

▪ 2002

      American singer and songwriter (b. Aug. 30, 1935, Parris Island, S.C.—d. March 18, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.), was the guiding force behind the Mamas and the Papas, the folk-pop-rock group that in only about two years in the mid-1960s had six numbers in the top 10 and worldwide sales in the millions. They came to epitomize the hippy “flower power” era in the U.S. In the mid-1960s Phillips and his second wife, Michelle (Holly Michelle Gilliam), teamed up with Dennis Doherty and later Cass Elliot, moved to Los Angeles, and named themselves the Mamas and the Papas. Their first single, “California Dreamin' ” (1965), reached the number four spot on the charts, and their next, “Monday, Monday” (1966), reached number one and won a Grammy Award. Eleven other hit singles followed. The group disbanded in 1968, reuniting only briefly in 1971. Phillips released a solo album, John Phillips: The Wolfking of L.A., in 1970, and although he struggled with alcohol- and drug-abuse problems in the 1970s, he wrote music for films. In 1982 he toured with a new lineup of the Mamas and the Papas that included one of his daughters as well as Doherty. Phillips's autobiography, Papa John, was published in 1986, and in 1998 the Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Phillips had recently completed a new solo album, which was to be released posthumously.

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