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John Phillips | |
|---|---|
 Phillips in 1967 | |
| Born | John Edmund Andrew Phillips (1935-08-30)August 30, 1935 |
| Died | March 18, 2001(2001-03-18) (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Papa John Johnny Phillips Phillips JP |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1960–2001 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 5, includingMackenzie Phillips,Chynna Phillips andBijou Phillips |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Instruments |
|
| Labels | Dunhill |
Musical artist | |
John Edmund Andrew Phillips (August 30, 1935 – March 18, 2001)[1] was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the leader of the vocal groupthe Mamas & the Papas and remains frequently referred to asPapa John Phillips. In addition to writing the majority of the group's compositions, he also wrote "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" in 1967 for formerJourneymen bandmateScott McKenzie,[2] as well as the oft-covered "Me and My Uncle", which was a favorite in the repertoire of theGrateful Dead. Phillips was one of the chief organizers of the 1967Monterey Pop Festival.
Phillips was born August 30, 1935, onParris Island, South Carolina.[1][3] His father, Claude Andrew Phillips, was a retired United States Marine Corps officer. On his way home from France following World War I, Claude Phillips managed to win a tavern located in Oklahoma from another Marine during a poker game. His mother, Edna Gertrude (née Gaines),[4] who had English ancestry,[5] met his father in Oklahoma. According to Phillips's autobiography,Papa John, his father was a heavy drinker who suffered from poor health.
Phillips grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was inspired byMarlon Brando to be "street tough". From 1942 to 1946, he attendedLinton Hall Military School in Bristow, Virginia. According to his autobiography, he "hated the place," citing "inspections," and "beatings," and recalls that "nuns even watched us take showers".[6][7] He formed a musical group of teenage boys, who sangdoo-wop songs. He played basketball atGeorge Washington High School, now George Washington Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, where he graduated in 1953, and gained an appointment to theUnited States Naval Academy. However, he resigned during his first (plebe) year. Phillips then attendedHampden–Sydney College, a liberal arts college for men inHampden Sydney, Virginia, dropping out in 1959.
Phillips traveled to New York in the early 1960s in the hope of gaining a record contract. His first band, The Journeymen, was afolk trio, withScott McKenzie andDick Weissman.[8] They were fairly successful, putting out three albums, and had several appearances on the 1960s TV showHootenanny. All three albums, as well as a compilation titledBest of the Journeymen, have since been reissued on CD. He developed his craft inGreenwich Village, during theAmerican folk music revival, and met future Mamas & the Papas membersDenny Doherty andCass Elliot there around that time. Lyrics in the group's song "Creeque Alley" describe this period.
Phillips was the primary songwriter and musical arranger of the Mamas and the Papas. In a 1968 interview, Phillips described some of his arrangements as "well-arranged two-part harmony moving in opposite directions".[2] After being signed toDunhill, they had sixBillboard Top Ten hits – "California Dreamin'", "Monday, Monday", "I Saw Her Again", "Creeque Alley", "Words of Love" and "Dedicated to the One I Love".
Phillips helped promote theMonterey International Pop Music Festival held June 16– 18, 1967, in Monterey, California; he performed with the Mamas and the Papas as part of the event as well. The festival was planned in just seven weeks, and was developed as a way to validate rock music as an art form in the way jazz and folk were regarded. It was the first major pop-rock music event in history. He also co-produced the filmMonterey Pop (1968) with the group's producerLou Adler.[9]
John and Michelle Phillips became Hollywood celebrities, living in the Hollywood Hills and socializing with stars such asJack Nicholson,Warren Beatty, andRoman Polanski. The Mamas and the Papas broke up in 1968 largely becauseCass Elliot wanted to go solo and because of personal problems between Phillips, his wife Michelle, and Denny Doherty, including Michelle's affair with Doherty. As Michelle Phillips later recounted, "Cass confronted me and said 'I don't get it. You could have any man you want. Why would you take mine?'" Michelle Phillips was fired briefly in 1966 for having affairs withGene Clark and Doherty. She was replaced for two months byJill Gibson, their producer Lou Adler's girlfriend. Although Phillips was forgiven and asked to return to the group, the personal problems continued until the group split. Elliot went on to have a successful solo career until her death in 1974.
Phillips released his first solo album,John, the Wolf King of L.A., in 1970. The album was not commercially successful, although it did include the minor hit "Mississippi", and Phillips began to withdraw from the limelight as his use ofnarcotics increased.
He teamed up with Adler again to produceRobert Altman's 1970 filmBrewster McCloud and also wrote the songs for the film.[9]
Phillips produced his third wifeGenevieve Waite's albumRomance Is on the Rise, and wrote music for films. Between 1969 and 1974, Phillips and Waïte worked on a script and composed over 30 songs for a space-themed musical calledMan on the Moon, which was eventually produced byAndy Warhol but played for just two days in New York after receiving disastrous opening night reviews.
Phillips moved to London in 1973, whereMick Jagger encouraged him to record another solo album. It was to be released onRolling Stones Records and funded by RSR distributorAtlantic Records. Jagger andKeith Richards produced and played on the album, as well as former StoneMick Taylor and futureStoneRonnie Wood. The project was derailed by Phillips's increasing use ofcocaine and heroin, which he injected, by his own admission, "almost every fifteen minutes for two years".[10] In 2001, the tracks of theHalf Stoned orThe Lost Album album were released asPay Pack & Follow a few months after Phillips's death. In 1975 Phillips, still living in London, was commissioned to create the soundtrack to theNicolas Roeg filmThe Man Who Fell to Earth, starringDavid Bowie. Phillips asked Mick Taylor to help out; the film was released in 1976.
In 1981, Phillips was convicted ofdrug trafficking.[11] Subsequently, he and his daughterMackenzie made the rounds in the media in an anti-drug campaign, helping to reduce his prison time to a month in jail, of which he spent three weeks (one week off for good behavior) at Allenwood Prison Camp, inAllenwood, Pennsylvania. Upon his release, he re-formed the Mamas and the Papas with Mackenzie Phillips,Spanky McFarlane (of the groupSpanky and Our Gang) andDenny Doherty. Throughout the rest of his life, Phillips toured with various incarnations of this group.
His autobiography,Papa John, was published in 1986.
WithTerry Melcher,Mike Love, and former Journeymen colleagueScott McKenzie, he co-wrote the number-one single "Kokomo" for theBeach Boys. The song was used in the 1988 filmCocktail and was nominated for aGrammy Award (Best Song Written specifically for a Motion Picture or Television) and aGolden Globe Award for Best Song.
His years of drug addiction resulted in health problems that required aliver transplant in 1992. Several months later, photographs of him drinking alcohol in a bar inPalm Springs, California, were published in theNational Enquirer. On March 14, 1994, during his firstHoward Stern Show appearance since the transplant, he said, "Occasionally I have a drink", when asked if he still drank.
Phillips spent his last years inPalm Springs, California, with Farnaz Arasteh, his fourth wife. On March 18, 2001, he died ofheart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 65,[1][12][13] days after completing recording sessions for a new album. He is interred atForest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs[14] where later his third wifeGenevieve Waite was buried as well.
Phillips married Susan Adams[15] of a wealthy Virginia family on May 7, 1957. They had a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter,Mackenzie.
While touring California withThe Journeymen, Phillips met teenagerHolly Michelle Gilliam, with whom he had an extramarital affair.[11] The affair caused the dissolution of his marriage to Adams; subsequently he married Michelle on December 31, 1962. The couple had one child together,Chynna Phillips, vocalist of the 1990s pop trioWilson Phillips.Denny Doherty and Michelle started an affair in 1965. Phillips and Michelle divorced in May 1969.
Phillips married his third wife, actress and modelGenevieve Waite, on January 30, 1972.[16] The couple had two children, Tamerlane andBijou Phillips. Phillips and Waite divorced in 1985.[17]
Phillips married his fourth wife, painter and artist Farnaz Arasteh, on February 3, 1995.[18][19]
In September 2009, eight years after Phillips's death, his eldest daughterMackenzie alleged that she and her father had a 10-year abusive andincestuous relationship. In her memoirHigh on Arrival, Mackenzie wrote that the relationship began in 1979 when she was 19 years old. She said that the abuse began after her fatherraped her while they were both under the influence of heavynarcotics on the eve of her first marriage.[20] OnThe Oprah Winfrey Show on September 23, 2009, Mackenzie Phillips said that John injected her withcocaine and heroin. According to Phillips, the sexual abuse ended when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child; she said these doubts led her to have anabortion her father paid for. She stated, "I never let him touch me again."[21][22]
Genevieve Waite, John's wife at the time, denied the allegations, saying they were inconsistent with his character.Michelle Phillips, John's second wife, also stated that she had "every reason to believe [Mackenzie's account is] untrue".[23]Chynna Phillips, Michelle Phillips's daughter, stated that she believed Mackenzie's claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the sexual assault during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the events had ended.[24]Bijou Phillips, Mackenzie's half-sister from her father's marriage to Genevieve Waite, has stated that Mackenzie informed her of the sexual abuse when Bijou was 13 years old, and the information had a devastating effect on Bijou's teenage years, stripping her of her innocence and leaving her "wary of [her] father". However, she went on to add, "I'm 29 now, I've talked to everyone who was around during that time, I've asked the hard questions. I do not believe my sister. Our father [was] many things. This is not one of them.".[25][26] Jessica Woods, daughter ofDenny Doherty, said that her father had told her that he knew "the awful truth" and that he was "horrified at what John had done".[27]
In 1996, a Golden Palm Star on thePalm Springs, California,Walk of Stars was dedicated to Phillips.[28]
The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into theRock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame on January 12, 1998, and theVocal Group Hall of Fame in 2000.
| Year | Title | Catalog Number | US[29] | US A/C[30] | US Country[30] | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | "Mississippi" B-side: "April Anne" | Dunhill 4236 | #32 | #13 | #58 | John Phillips |
| 1972 | "Revolution on Vacation" B-side: "Cup of Tea" | Columbia 4-45737 | Non-album track |
| Year | Name | Type | Label | Additional artist(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) | Album | Dunhill Records | The backing musicians included members ofWrecking Crew. | Released as part of theJohn Phillips Presents series of CDs when it was reissued in 2006.[31] |
| 1970 | Brewster McCloud | Soundtrack | MGM Records | Merry Clayton on vocals. | CD reissued in 2000. |
| 2001 | Pay Pack & Follow | Album | Eagle Rock /Red Ink Records | Mick Jagger on vocals,Keith Richards,Mick Taylor, andRon Wood on guitar. | Recorded 1973–1979, but released one month after his death in April 2001. |
| 2001 | Phillips 66 | Album | Eagle Rock / Red Ink Records | Final recording. | Released in August 2001. |
| 2008 | Pussycat | Album | Varèse Vintage | Produced byThe Glimmer Twins with guitars by Mick Taylor and Ron Wood. | Recorded 1976–77, mixed 1978 and released in September 2008. Released as part of theJohn Phillips Presents series of CDs. |
| 2009 | Andy Warhol Presents Man on the Moon | Musical | Varèse Sarabande | Written by John Phillips and produced byAndy Warhol and directed byPaul Morrissey. | 1975 musical. Released as part of theJohn Phillips Presents series of CDs.[32] |
| 2016 | The Man Who Fell to Earth | Soundtrack | UMC | Score produced withStomu Yamashta and theBournemouth Symphony Orchestra. | Unreleased until the 40th anniversary. |
