Today’s classic song of the day is an autobiographical journey through the early’60s folk music scene and the formation of the group the Mamas & the Papas. The song is “Creeque Alley” and, when it was released as a single in April of 1967, it went to #5 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100.
“Creeque Alley” was written by Papa John Phillips and his wife Michelle. It takes the listener through the people and places that made up the folk music scene of the time; the name comes from a narrow street named Creeque’s Alley in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where the members of the Mamas and the Papas lived for a time in 1965.
Among the people and places mentioned in the song were:
- “John and Mitchie were gettin’ kind of itchy to leave the folk music behind.” John and Michelle (“Mitchie”) had been playing in a folk group called the New Journeymen (after John had previously played in a previous incarnation called just the Journeymen), and were eager to move on to something new.
- “Zal and Denny, workin’ for a penny, tryin’ to get a fish on the line.” Zal was Zal Yanovsky, who later formed the Lovin’ Spoonful with John Sebastian. Denny, of course, was Denny Doherty who would soon join up with John and Michelle (and Cass Elliott) to form the Mamas and the Papas. Zal and Denny were two-thirds of a folk trio called the Halifax Three that were not enormously successful.
- “In a coffee house Sebastian sat.” Sebastian was John Sebastian, soon to join with Zal Yanovsky in the Lovin’ Spoonful.
- “McGuinn and McGuire’s just a gettin’ higher.” McGuinn was Roger McGuinn, soon to form the Byrds. (Also soon to be known for their song, “8 Miles High.”) McGuire was Barry McGuire, friend of all the mamas and papas who would later join the New Christy Minstrels and have a solo hit with “Eve of Destruction.”
- “And no one’s getting fat except Mama Cass.” Mama Cass, of course, being Cass Elliott, the fourth member of the Mamas and the Papas. Apparently she thought the reference to her weight was funny.
- “When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swarthmore, but changed her mind one day.” This one’s a bit of a fiction; Cass planned to go to college at Goucher College near Baltimore, not Swarthmore, but John couldn’t find anything to rhyme with “Goucher.”
- “Call John and Zal, and that was the Mugwumps.” The Mugwumps was a folk group consisting of Denny Doherty, Zal Yavonksy, Cass Elliott, and Jim Hendricks, Cass’ husband at the time.
- “Mugwumps , hi-jumps, low slumps, big bumps, don’t you work as hard as you play. Make-up, break-up, everything you shake up, guess it had to be that way.” The Mugwumps broke up.
- “Sebastian and Zal formed the Spoonful.” The Lovin’ Spoonful, that is.
- “Michelle, John, and Denny gettin’ very tuneful.” Denny Doherty eventually joined John and Michelle Phillips in the New Journeymen. They clicked.
- “Broke, busted, disgusted, agents can’t be trusted, and Mitchie wants to go to the sea.” When the New Journeymen broke up, John, Michelle, and Denny took an extended vacation to the Virgin Islands.
- “Cass can’t make it, she says she’ll have to fake it, we knew she’d come eventually.” Cass initially couldn’t join the others in the Virgin Islands, but eventually did.
- “Greasin’ on American Express cards.” John financed the excursion to the Virgin Islands with a business American Express card belonging to the New Journeymen.
- “Tents, low rents, but keepin’ out the heat’s hard. Duffy’s good vibrations, and our imaginations,
can’t go on indefinitely.” A short description of their life in the Island. They lived in a boarding house owned by a guy named Hugh Duffy. The house was located—where else?—on the street named Creeque’s Alley. - “And California Dreamin’ is becoming a reality.” When their time in the Virgin Islands was over, the group moved to New York City, which is where John and Michelle wrote “California Dreamin’,” which would become the Mamas and the Papas’ first big hit.
And that’s the story of “Creeque Alley.” How much of that did you already know?
Here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the Mamas and the Papas lip-synching “Creeque Alley” (and goofing around something fierce) on the June 11, 1967, episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. I don’t think they took it too seriously.
