John Phillips (musician)

"Papa John" redirects here. For the pizza restaurant chain, see Papa John's Pizza.

John Phillips
Birth name	John Edmund Andrew Phillips
Also known as	Papa John
Genres	Folk, pop
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1960–2001
Labels	Dunhill Records
Associated acts	The Journeymen The Mamas & the Papas

John Edmund Andrew Phillips (August 30, 1935 – March 18, 2001), was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas. He is the father of Jeffrey Phillips, Mackenzie Phillips, Chynna Phillips, Tamerlane Phillips, and Bijou Phillips.

Early life

Phillips was born in Parris Island, South Carolina. His father was a retired United States Marine Corps officer who won an Oklahoma bar from another Marine in a poker game on the way home from France after World War II. His mother was a Cherokee Indian his father met in Oklahoma. According to his autobiography, Papa John, Phillips' father was a heavy drinker who suffered from poor health.

Phillips grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was inspired by Marlon Brando to be "street tough." He formed a group of teenage boys, who also sang doo-wop songs. He played basketball at George Washington High School, where he graduated in 1953, and gained an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. However, he left during his first (plebe) year. At that time the only way to leave the Academy without being sent to the enlisted ranks was for immoral behavior, poor grades or a family hardship. Phillips then attended Hampden-Sydney College on a partial athletic scholarship, but dropped out and married his first of four wives. She was Susan Adams, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia family. They had a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter they named Laura Mackenzie Phillips.

The Mamas & the Papas

Phillips longed to have success in the music industry and traveled to New York to find a record contract in the early 1960s. His first band, The Journeymen, was a folk trio. He developed his craft in Greenwich Village, during the American folk music revival, and met his future The Mamas & the Papas bandmates Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot there. Lyrics of their song "Creeque Alley" describe this period.

While touring California with The Journeymen, he met his future second wife, the teenage Michelle Gilliam. Their affair finally forced the dissolution of his first marriage. Phillips was married to Michelle Phillips from 1962 to 1970. They had one child together, Chynna Phillips, vocalist of the 1990s' pop trio Wilson Phillips.

Phillips was the primary songwriter and musical arranger of The Mamas & the Papas. Early in the band's history, John and Michelle were responsible for writing most of the band's songs. John would often come up with a melody and some lyrics and Michelle would help him complete the lyrical portion of the song. After being signed to Dunhill Records, they had several Billboard Top Ten hits during the group's short lifetime, including "California Dreamin'", "Monday, Monday", "I Saw Her Again", "Creeque Alley", and "12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)". John Phillips also wrote "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", the 1967 Scott McKenzie hit that was to become the Summer of Love anthem. Phillips also wrote the oft-covered "Me and My Uncle", which was the song performed more times than any other over 30 years of Grateful Dead concerts.

The Phillipses became Hollywood celebrities, living in the Hollywood Hills and socializing with stars like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Roman Polanski. The group broke up largely because Cass Elliot wanted to go solo and because of some personal problems among Phillips, Michelle, and Denny Doherty. Michelle had been fired briefly in 1966, for having had affairs with both Denny and Gene Clark, and was replaced for two months by Jill Gibson, their producer Lou Adler's girlfriend. Although Michelle was forgiven and asked to return to the group, the personal problems would continue until the band split up in 1968. Cass Elliot went on to have a successful solo career until her death from heart failure (not from choking on the half-eaten remains of a sandwich or from a drug overdose, as is often rumored) in 1974.

After: The ups and downs

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".

The actress Geneviève Waïte became his third wife in 1972. The couple had two children, Tamerlane and Bijou Phillips. Reportedly, both parents were drug addicts and infidelity marked their marriage. Phillips began to withdraw from the limelight as his use of narcotics increased, but he produced a Genevieve Waite album, Romance Is On the Rise and wrote music for films and Broadway. He also wrote an unsuccessful musical which closed on Broadway during previews.

Phillips moved to London in 1973, where Mick Jagger encouraged him to record another solo album. Jagger and his fellow Rolling Stones member Keith Richards were to produce and play on the album and other musicians were to include former Stone Mick Taylor and future Stone Ronnie Wood. The album was to be released on the Rolling Stones Records label and funded by RSR's distributor, Atlantic Records. The project was derailed by Phillips' increasing use of cocaine and heroin, which, by his own admission, he injected, "almost every fifteen minutes for two years". This material, known as the "Half Stoned" or "Lost" album, was not released until after Phillips' death.

In 1975 Phillips, still living in London, was commissioned to create the soundtrack to the Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie. Phillips asked Mick Taylor to help out; the film was released in 1976.

In 1981 Phillips was convicted of drug trafficking; subsequently, he and his television star daughter Mackenzie Phillips made the rounds in the media, instructing children and parents how not to become addicts. Participation in this public relations campaign enabled Phillips to receive a reduced sentence, and he spent only one month in jail. Upon release, he re-formed The Mamas & the Papas, with Mackenzie Phillips, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (of the group Spanky and Our Gang) and Denny Doherty. Throughout the rest of his life, Phillips toured with various versions of this group.

Phillips was divorced from Waite in 1985. In 1986, his best-selling autobiography, Papa John, was published. In 1988 he co-wrote a song for the Beach Boys, "Kokomo", which became a number one hit.

In the 1990s, Phillips' years of alcohol and drug addiction led to the need for a liver transplant, which he received in 1992. Several months later, however, he was photographed drinking alcohol in a bar in Palm Springs, California, and the photo was published in the National Enquirer newspaper. Phillips was questioned about the photo on the Howard Stern radio show, and explained, "I was just trying to 'break in' the new liver".

The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame on Jan 12th, 1998.

Death

John Phillips died on March 18, 2001 in Los Angeles of heart failure at the age of 65. He is interred in an outdoor crypt at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California, the town he had lived in with his fourth wife, Farnaz. He left behind five children.

He died just days after completing sessions for a new album. Phillips 66, which was released posthumously in August 2001.

Also in 2001, the tracks of the '"Half Stoned" or "Lost" album from 1973 were released as Pay Pack & Follow.

Posthumous allegation of incest

In September 2009, John's daughter Mackenzie Phillips alleged in a new memoir, High on Arrival, that she and her father had a consentual ten-year incestuous relationship. She stated that the relationship began when she was 19 years old in 1979, after Philips raped her while they were both under the influence of heavy narcotics on the eve of her first marriage.

Genevieve Waite, John's wife at the time, denied the allegations and said they were totally incongruous with his character. Michelle Phillips, John's second wife, also stated that she had "every reason to believe [Mackenzie's account is] untrue."

Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie's half-sister, stated that she believed Mackenzie's claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the relationship had ended.

Solo discography

• 2008: Pussycat (9/9/2008)
• 2007: Jack Of Diamonds (2007)
• 2006: John Phillips (John, The Wolfking Of L.A.) (9/12/2006)
• 2001: Phillips 66 (2001)
• 2001: Pay Pack & Follow (2001)
• 1970: Brewster McCloud (1970) Soundtrack with Merry Clayton vocals
• 1969: John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) (1969)

External links

• Papa John Phillips Official Website
• John Phillips at IMDb
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame