More Info on John PhillipsSimilar Undetermined MusicSearch Artistopia
Biography
about|the singer-songwriter|the restaurant chain|Papa John's Pizza|the organist|John DeFrancescoInfobox musical artist | name = John Phillips| image =| caption =| background = solo_singer| birth_name = John Edmund Andrew Phillips| alias = Papa John Johnny Phillips Phillips JP| birth_date = birth date|1935|8|30|birth_place = Parris Island, South Carolina , United States | death_date = Death date and age|2001|3|18|1935|8|30|death_place = Los Angeles, California , United States | origin =| instrument = Singing|Vocals , guitar | genre = folk music|Folk , Pop music|pop | occupation = Musician | years_active = 1960–2001| spouse = marriage|Susan Adams|1957|1962 marriage| Michelle Phillips |1962|1970 marriage| Geneviève Waïte |1972|1985 marriage|Farnaz Arasteh|1995|2001| label = Dunhill Records | associated_acts = The Journeymen The Mamas & the Papas | spouse = marriage|Susan Adams|1957|1962 marriage| Michelle Phillips |1962|1970 marriage| Geneviève Waïte |1972|1985 marriage|Farnaz Arasteh|1995|2001| website =| notable_instruments = John Edmund Andrew Phillips (August 30, 1935 & ndash; March 18, 2001), was an United States|American singing|singer , guitarist , songwriter and Promoter (entertainment)|promoter , most notably of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . Known as Papa John , Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas . He was the father of Jeffrey Phillips|Jeffrey , Mackenzie Phillips|Mackenzie , Chynna Phillips|Chynna , Tamerlane Phillips|Tamerlane , and Bijou Phillips|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 I . His mother, a Cherokee Native, met his father in Oklahoma. According to his autobiography, Papa John , Phillips' father was a alcoholic|heavy drinker who suffered from poor health.
Phillips grew up in Alexandria, Virginia , where he was inspired by Marlon Brando to be "street tough". From 1942 to 1946, he attended Linton Hall Military School in Bristow, Va.; according to his autobiography, he "hated the place" and cited "inspections" and "beatings." Phillips, John, Papa John - An Autobiography, Doubleday & Co. 1986, pages 41-43. ISBN 978-0440167839 The school was renamed Linton Hall School . He formed a group of teenage boys, who also sang doo-wop songs. He played basketball at George Washington Middle School (Virginia)|George Washington High School , where he graduated in 1953, and gained an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy . However, he resigned during his first (plebe) year. Phillips then attended Hampden-Sydney College but dropped out and married his first of four wives: Susan Adams, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia family. They had a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter, Mackenzie Phillips|Laura Mackenzie (known as "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 music|folk trio, with Scott McKenzie and Dick Weismann. They were fairly successful, putting out three albums and several appearances on the 1960s TV show, Hootenanny. All three albums, as well as a compilation known as "Best of the Journeymen," were reissued on CD. He developed his craft in Greenwich Village , during the American folk music revival , and met his future The Mamas & the Papas band mates Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot there around that time. Lyrics of their song " Creeque Alley " describe this period.
While touring California with The Journeymen, he met the woman who would become his second wife, the teenage Michelle Phillips|Michelle Gilliam , with whom he had an extramarital affair. Their affair forced the dissolution of his first marriage, and he married Michelle in 1962 and would stay with her until 1970. The couple had one child together, Chynna Phillips , vocalist of the 1990s' pop trio Wilson Phillips .
The Journeymen were the house band of the hungry i on Broadway in San Francisco for many years.
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|Dunhill , they had several Billboard magazine|Billboard Top Ten hits, including " California Dreamin' (song)|California Dreamin' ", " Monday, Monday ", " I Saw Her Again ", " Creeque Alley ", and " Twelve Thirty|12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon) ". John Phillips also wrote " San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) ", in 1967 for former The Journeyman band mate, Scott McKenzie . "San Francisco" is widely regarded as emblematic of 1960s American counterculture music. Phillips also wrote the oft-covered " Me and My Uncle ", which was a favorite song cover frequently performed by Grateful Dead|The Grateful Dead .
Phillips also helped promote and played in The Monterey International Pop Music Festival held June 16 to June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California. 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.
The Phillipses became Hollywood celebrities, living in the Hollywood Hills and socializing with stars such as 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 Gene Clark and Doherty, and was replaced for a period of 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 in 1968. Cass Elliot went on to have a successful solo career until her death from heart failure in 1974.
Later life
Phillips released his first solo album John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.)|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 of narcotic s increased.
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 produced a Genevieve Waite album, Romance Is On the Rise and wrote music for films. Between 1969 and 1974, Phillips and Waite worked on a script and composed over 30 songs for a space-themed musical called Man On The Moon (musical)|Man On The Moon , which was eventually produced by Andy Warhol but played for just two days in New York after receiving disastrous opening night reviews.
Phillips moved to London in 1973; Mick Jagger encouraged him to record another solo album. It was to be released on Rolling Stones Records and funded by RSR distributor Atlantic Records . Jagger and Keith Richards would produce and play on the album, as well as former Stone Mick Taylor and future Stone Ronnie Wood . The project was derailed by Phillips' increasing use of cocaine and heroin , substances that he shot into his body, by his own admission, "almost every fifteen minutes for two years". The E& #33; True Hollywood Story , Episode: " Mackenzie Phillips ". Entertainment Television Network, 1999. Phillips admits this in an on camera interview. In 2001, the tracks of the Half Stoned or The Lost Album album were released as Pay Pack & Follow a few months 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 (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 kids and their parents how not to become addicts. This public relations campaign helped reduce his prison time to only a month in jail. Upon release, he re-formed The Mamas & the Papas, with Mackenzie Phillips, 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. With Terry Melcher , Mike Love and his former Journeyman colleague Scott McKenzie , he co-wrote the number 1 single for the Beach Boys , " Kokomo (song)|Kokomo ", which was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Song Written specifically for a Motion Picture or Television category (it lost to Phil Collins|Phil Collins's "Two Hearts", from the film " Buster (film)|Buster ").
In the 1990s, his years of addiction led to the need for a Liver transplantation|liver transplant in 1992. Several months later, however, he was photographed drinking alcohol in a bar in Palm Springs, California , as 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.
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 , where he had lived with his fourth wife, Farnaz. He died just days after completing sessions for a new album. Phillips 66 was released posthumously in August 2001.
Allegations of sexual relationship with daughter
In September 2009, John's daughter Mackenzie Phillips stated in a memoir, High on Arrival, that she and her father had a ten-year incestuous relationship. She stated that the relationship began when she was 19 years old in 1979, after Phillips raped her while they were both under the influence of heavy narcotics on the eve of her first marriage.cite web | last = | first = | title = Mackenzie Phillips: I slept with my own father | publisher = People (magazine)|People | url = http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32976391/ns/entertainment-celebrities/ | accessdate = 2009-09-23
Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 September 2009 in which she told Oprah Winfrey|Winfrey that her father injected her with Speedball (drug)|cocaine and heroin . According to Phillips, the incestuous relationship ended when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. These doubts resulted in an abortion, which her father paid for, "and I never let him touch me again." cite news| url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/mackenzie-phillips-to-opr_n_296431.html | work=Huffington Post | first=Katherine | last=Thomson | title=Mackenzie Phillips To Oprah: Decade Of Sex With Dad Ended With Abortion | date=September 23, 2009 http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090826-tows-mackenzie-phillips-book
Geneviève Waïte , John's wife at the time the abuse allegedly occurred, denied the allegations and said they were totally opposite of his character. Michelle Phillips , John's second wife, also stated that she had "every reason to believe Mackenzie's account is untrue."cite news | last = Eng | first = Joyce | title = Mackenzie Phillips' Family Split Over Star's Incest Claims | work = | publisher = Seattle Post-Intelligencer | url = http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/410465_tvgif23.html | accessdate = 2009-09-24 | deadurl=yesDead link|date=September 2010|bot=H3llBot
Chynna Phillips , Mackenzie's half-sister, stated that she believed Mackenzie's statements and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the supposed relationship had ended.cite news | last = Everett | first = Cristina | title = Chynna Phillips recalls learning about sister Mackenzie Phillips' affair with father, John Phillips | work = | publisher = New York Daily News | url = http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_chynna_phillips_recalls_learning_about_sister_mackenzie_phillips_affair_with_fat.html | accessdate = 2009-09-24 | date=September 23, 2009 Bijou Phillips , Mackenzie's other half-sister, said in a statement that Mackenzie had informed her of the relationship when Bijou was 13 years old,cite web | last = | first = | title = Bijou Phillips reacts to Mackenzie's Claims | work = | publisher = Oprah | url = http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/2 | accessdate = 2009-09-24 but also stated, "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 is many things, this is not one of them."cite news| url= http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail? blogid=7& entry_id=48565 | work=The San Francisco Chronicle | title=Phillips Blames Mackenzie For Ruining Her Life | date=September 29, 2009 Jessica Woods, the daughter of Denny Doherty , said that her father knew of the relationship.cite web | last = | first = | title = Denny Doherty's Daughter Corroborates Mackenzie Phillips' Story | work = | publisher = Oprah | url = http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/8 | accessdate = 2009-09-24
Discography
Solo
1970: John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.)
1970: Brewster McCloud (soundtrack)|Brewster McCloud - Soundtrack with Merry Clayton at vocals.
http://www.papajohnphillips.com Papa John Phillips Official Website
IMDb name|680512|John Phillips
http://home.comcast.net/~dunhill1966/index.htm The Mamas & The Papas Online Price Guide
Pop Chronicles|36|name=John Phillips
work=Musician and songwriter|author=T. Denardo|date=March 28, 2001|accessdate=July 1, 2011 Persondata | NAME = Phillips, John | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Phillips. John Edmond Andrew | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Musician and songwriter | DATE OF BIRTH = August 30, 1935 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Parris Island, South Carolina | DATE OF DEATH = March 18, 2001 | PLACE OF DEATH = Los Angeles, California
DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, John Category:1935 births Category:2001 deaths
Category:People from Beaufort, South Carolina Category:American expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:American male singers Category:American rock singers Category:Songwriters from South Carolina Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Military brats Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:The Mamas & the Papas members
