All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart

Drawing on previously published memoirs of band members and new interviews with those who knew them, radio producer Shea crafts an impersonal but intriguing compilation of the accounts, song development, and relationship entanglements that led to the fast rise and extraordinary fall of the Mamas & the Papas. The book primarily focuses on John Phillips, from his troubled childhood as the son of an abusive, alcohol-addicted parent, to his complicated first marriage and his attempts to become a serious folk musician. Then Phillips met aspiring model Michelle Gilliam, and their relationship became the catalyst for his best-known songs, “California Dreamin’” and “Monday, Monday.” Phillips soon brought Cass Elliot into the group, along with tenor Dennis Doherty. As a band, the Mamas & the Papas recorded five albums, with 10 hits, in the 1960s. Drugs, affairs, jealousies as Mama Cass becomes the breakout star, and an embarrassing set as the closing act for Phillips’s Monterey International Pop Festival soon led to the band’s demise.