He was born and raised along side 30,000 marine recruits at Paris Island, South Carolina. His father was a retired Naval Officer, who'd won an Oklahoma bar in a poker game. After struggling thru middle school and high school, he gets accepted into the United States Naval Academy, but he drops out after only a year. He went on to Hampden-Sydney College, a liberal arts college for men. He dropped out after a year.

He started a folk trio called the Journeymen. They were fairly well-received, thanks in part to the tv show Hootenanny. After three successful albums with the J-Men, he started a co-ed group, named after the Hell's Angels ladies auxiliary group the Mama's, they called themselves the Mamas & the Papas. they have several Bill Board Top 10 Hits; California Dreaming, Monday Monday and San Fransisco, just to name a few.

Aside from performing, he helped plan, promote and play at the Monterey Pop Festival, including the accompanying film, Monterey Pop. After years of fame and hanging out with HollyWood socialites, his drug use increases. Tiring of the US, he moves to London, England for a while. He hangs out with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones and David Bowie.

After being convicted of drug trafficking, he got the Mamas & the Papas back together, wrote Kokomo , on the side, for the Beach Boys and won a Grammy for that song for the film Cocktail, he had a liver transplant and eventually died of heart failure. One of the fore-fathers of festivals, four-tracks and folk music, it's the jam of John Phillips!

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