Papa John by John Phillips Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Papa John
Book Review: One of the greatest dope books ever penned
Summary: 4 Stars
This reviewer has often wondered, "With all the drugs they did, shouldn't the Mamas & Papas have made music rivaling 'Time Has Come Today' and 'In-a-Gadda-da-Vida'?" I didn't know the half until I read Papa John.
Phillips writes his life like a novel (beginning with stunningly dysfunctional grandparents), with such joie de vive that even when he's a cad, a shirker, a deadbeat dad, and a destroyer of Federal property you can't help but like the guy. (You gotta love when he packs a load of 45s on his trip to fight in the Cuban revolution. Guns? No, records!) The chapters on the semi-folk boom of the sixties are enjoyable, ditto the parts about how the Ms&Ps managed to work together creatively while living together fitfully, and his ironic takes on iconic figures are priceless. But PJ, to quote the song, is "a real straight shooter if ya know what I mean," and it's his drug experience--decades of it--that gives the book its structure, its meaning, and its power. The deluded euphoria, hallucinatory bliss, fun and paranoia of hiding from the straight world, nonstop multisensory hell of withdrawal, desperation of trying to cop something, anything for a buzz--it's all there, up-close and radioactively articulate. This Papa takes no prisoners and doesn't let himself off the hook for one second. One of the most important drug memoirs you'll even read.
Book Review: Papa John
Summary: 5 Stars
Wild account of the 60's rock scene behind closed doors.
I read it 10 years ago and still
think of it.
Book Review: Sadly, Not About His Music
Summary: 1 Stars
John Phillips biography "Papa John" barely mentions his songs and focuses entirely on his personal hedonistic escapades.
Although some of his adventures were amusing and eventually vomitous, Phillips did himself a huge disservice when writing his biography by skimming his contributions to popular music.
If he had a decent editor who cared about his music, this version of "Papa John" never would have seen the light of day.
If you want to find out more about his music, try Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas and The Papas by Matthew Greenwald. It's a much better tribute to the man and his music.
Book Review: Shocking look into the rock-n-roll/sex/drugs 60's to 80's
Summary: 4 Stars
John Philips look (distorted?) back on his life is a real eye-opener of the trials and tribulations and traps of the 1960's rock-n-roll/sex/drug scene. A must read for those amateur contemporary historians with a voyeur mentality!Book Review: The darkside of the California Dream
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book for the first time in the mid-80s and while the subject matter is sordid, to say the least, this is probably one of the better rock autobiographies out there, at least from the 60s generation. "Papa John", older than many of his musical peers, goes from a dysfunctional childhood with a military father, to washing out of military school, to various brushes with the law and a marriage, with children, that he was far too immature to handle, before just chucking everything and heading off to California for an unfettered hippie musical career with his teenage lover Michelle, who he later marries. When his new band, The Mamas and the Papas, becomes a big hit, money starts flowing in, eventually leading to a nonstop party lifestyle, a divorce from Michelle, and ultimately the breakup of the band. With his new wife Genevieve, John starts to hang out with the Rolling Stones and both he and Gen develop prodigious drug habits, while John's children from his first marriage (Mackenzie and Jeff) run amok in Hollywood developing drug and emotional problems of their own. Police calls, stints in rehab, and hospital stays occur with frightening regularity. By the end of the book John is divorced from Gen, has seemingly succeeded in cleaning up his act enough to be functional, and is with a new girlfriend about 30 years younger than himself, but it all seemed pretty tenuous to me.
Readers should be aware that John's "Mamas and Papas" period occupies only a small section of the book, and very, very little of this book is about John's music or other musical activities such as tours. This is primarily a book about John's family and his drug use. The version I read also did not contain any sort of update covering his post-80s activities (such as the "Mamas and Papas" reunion tour). This is all OK with me because the book was marketed when I bought it as being a sort of tell-all autobiography involving drugs (similar to how Anthony Kiedis's "Scar Tissue" was presented) so I didn't go in expecting a musical history of the Mamas and the Papas. If that's what you want then you should probably read something else.
My only beef with the book is that the endless tales of shooting up this and that and partying in hotels and cities all over the world went on so long, it stopped being shocking (except maybe in the amount of money this guy clearly blew on drugs) and started just being repetitious. In spite of all that, this book is still pretty well written, might clue you to some John Phillips music you weren't aware of (did you know he wrote the sound track to "Man who Fell to Earth" and recorded a batch of unreleased Americana songs with Mick and Keith? worth checking out) and in light of his daughter Mackenzie's recent revelations, it's worth checking this book out just to get a sense of exactly how bright, but totally out of control John Phillips really was.
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