- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- Deliver · 1967
- The Papas & The Mamas · 1968
- 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
- If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears · 1966
- The Mamas & the Papas · 1966
- The Papas & The Mamas · 1968
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.
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- Four years, five albums, and a whole lot of history.
Compilations
About The Mamas & The Papas
The Mamas & The Papas’ four voices weaved around each other to help usher in the twin mid-’60s waves of folk rock and L.A. harmony pop. Like a lot of their peers, they came out of the folk scene. But when “Mama” Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty, Michelle Phillips, and her husband John Phillips joined forces in 1965, they wrapped their huge, heavenly harmonies around tunes masterfully blending pop, folk, and rock. Along the way, they redefined hits by The Beatles, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and others. In three short years, they unleashed a mighty flow of smashes that became signifiers of the flower-power generation, including “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday,” and “Creeque Alley.” They helped put together and featured prominently in June 1967’s legendary Monterey Pop Festival, gathering some of the era’s biggest artists for an event that made both the Summer of Love and the counterculture part of history. By 1968 internal tensions pulled the group apart, but their legacy is indelible.
- ORIGIN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1965
- GENRE
- Pop