One of probably the most well-known tales ever instructed about “Mama” Cass Elliot was an entire lie. It didn’t assist that the singer herself repeated it in scores of interviews. Because the spiel goes, Cass turned the final singer employed for the Mamas and Papas solely after she obtained smacked on the top by a pipe throughout a development venture at an area membership the place all of them frolicked. “It’s true,” she insisted to Rolling Stone in 1968. “I had a concussion and went to the hospital. I had a foul headache for about two weeks after which, rapidly, I used to be singing increased.”
The “new” sound she supposedly produced was what allegedly satisfied group’s chief John Phillips to lastly carry her into the fold, creating what turned probably the most well-known four-way concord teams in pop historical past. The truth is, the actual purpose Phillips didn’t initially wish to rent the clearly gifted Cass was just because he thought she was too chubby to be a part of a viable pop group. “The truth that she felt she needed to perpetuate a false story exhibits the depth of what she felt she needed to disguise,” stated Owen Elliot-Kugell, the singer’s daughter who has written a brand new e-book titled My Mama, Cass. “The reality was simply too painful.”
Even with that cowl story to protect her, Cass skilled relentless fat-shaming all through the group’s profession, highlighted by the principle chorus of their seminal hit Creeque Alley that learn “nobody’s getting fats besides Mama Cass”. The snarky references continued into their legacy years when, in an acceptance speech for his or her induction into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, fellow “Mama” Michelle Phillips stated: “I’ve private information that Cass is trying down on these proceedings sporting a dimension six Thierry Mugler gown.” The swipes about her weight even performed right into a broadly believed, however false, story about the reason for her dying. (The notorious choking-on-a-ham-sandwich bit). The poignancy of all of it types a central motif in Elliot-Kugell’s e-book although it doesn’t overwhelm the principle purpose we care to start with. The e-book additionally celebrates the singularity of Cass’ singing, the vary of her inventive expertise, and the heat of her character. The first inspiration for writing the e-book got here from a foundational trauma: Elliot-Kugell was solely seven when her mom died. “If you lose someone that younger, they grow to be a thriller to you,” she stated. “Writing the e-book allowed me to place the items of the puzzle of my mother collectively in a manner I hadn’t beforehand been in a position to do.”
Elliot-Kugell, now 57, started fascinated about writing a e-book about her mom almost twenty years in the past however, as a result of her personal expertise along with her was scant, she needed to go on an prolonged journalistic mission to mine the reminiscences of individuals with a far better understanding of her life and historical past. “I used to be all the time asking individuals about her,” she stated. “This e-book is a compilation of every thing I’ve been instructed through the years.”
The outcome strikes her as particularly related as we speak. “My mother was a forward-thinking woman-of-size who made it in an business that was largely managed by males,” she stated. “That makes her story well timed.”
As a result of her story ended too quickly it positive aspects particular ache as properly. “My mother was simply 32 when she handed,” Elliot-Kugell stated. “She didn’t dwell lengthy sufficient to put in writing a memoir that will have her facet represented. I did this as a result of she didn’t get the possibility to.”
What she uncovered was a life wherein others usually set the agenda, and framed the narrative, for her mom. When Cass was only a lady, she contracted ring worm, a extremely contagious illness. As a result of her mom was pregnant on the time, the household despatched her to dwell quickly along with her grandmother, a product of the Despair who seen meals as each a cure-all and a supply of affection. “They fed her like loopy,” Elliot-Kugell stated. “When my mother got here residence a few months later she was heavier and her dad and mom turned involved. They did what they knew find out how to do, which was to ship her to a health care provider. And he did what he knew find out how to do, which was to place her on amphetamines.”
“She was simply eight!” the creator exclaimed. “What does being on amphetamines do to a baby’s growing mind? It’s not solely altering chemically what’s occurring, its sending a horrible message that there’s one thing flawed with you. And this capsule will repair it.”
A vivid spot in Cass’ adolescence was music. At the same time as a baby, she had a voice that stood out, in addition to an curiosity in performing that she avidly pursued in highschool theatrical productions. Even there, she skilled judgement for her dimension. Whereas behind the scenes she taught the opposite youngsters find out how to sing, dance and current themselves, she by no means appeared on-stage herself. “She knew that different individuals have been going to guage her for her appears,” Elliot-Kugell stated. “I really feel horrible that she needed to undergo that.”
After highschool, she gained sufficient confidence to maneuver from her household’s residence in Maryland to New York to audition for skilled components in musicals. At that time, she ditched her beginning title, Ellen Cohen, to vogue a moniker combining her nickname, Cass, with that of a good friend named Elliot who died in a automobile crash. She earned an element within the touring firm of The Music Man, however solely because the “the fats lady” and, although she was within the working for the position of Miss Marmelstein in I Can Get It To You Wholesale, she misplaced to a different promising star: Barbra Streisand. On the time, she lamented to a good friend, “there simply don’t appear to be many components for a 200-pound ingenue.”
Fortunately for her, the people music scene was then exploding in New York’s Greenwich Village, a demimonde that celebrated various voices and opinions. She helped type a number of teams there, together with the Huge 3 and Mugwumps, the latter together with future Papa Denny Doherty and later Lovin’ Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanovski. They recorded only one album earlier than splitting, which paved Cass’ eventual manner into the burgeoning Mamas and Papas in 1965. By 12 months’s finish the brand new group already scored a High 5 smash with California Dreamin’, but internecine intrigue threatened to kill them of their crib. Members Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty had an affair, even if she was married to John and Cass had already made clear her deep crush on Doherty.
Cass’ thwarted pursuit of him emphasised a sample in her lifetime of going after unattainable males. Her first marriage, to Huge 3 member James Hendricks, was organized solely to assist him keep away from the draft. When she was 26, she turned pregnant by a person who was fleetingly in her life, but she determined to lift the kid on her personal as a option to insure she would all the time have somebody in her life. (The id of the daddy, a musician, wasn’t found by Elliot-Kugell till she was an grownup). “To me, probably the most profoundly unhappy issues in my mom’s complete story is the truth that she by no means obtained to have a relationship with one other human being on equal standing,” Elliot-Kugell stated.
A number of years later, Cass married one other man, a German journalist named Donald von Wiedenman, whom she divorced inside months. Elliot-Kugell makes no point out of him in her e-book as a result of, she stated, “he talked shit about her. And it wasn’t like their marriage modified her life. He was simply one other opportunist.”
Although romance eluded her, Cass turned massively standard as each an in depth good friend and a trusted musical adviser. From her first days on the scene, she displayed a A&R director’s talent at understanding which musicians would sound correct collectively. Throughout her Mugwumps days, she instructed John Sebastian work with Zal Yanovsky, within the course of midwifing the Lovin’ Spoonful. Within the yard of her Laurel Canyon in 1968, she inspired Graham Nash to harmonize with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, resulting in the formation of CSN. “Denny Doherty used to discuss with her because the puppeteer with the marionettes, placing everybody collectively,” Elliot-Kugell stated.
When the Mamas and Papas broke up, the sensible cash was on Cass to grow to be the solo star given the nice and cozy timber of her voice, the intelligence of her phrasing and the sheer power of what Elliot-Kugell calls “that Cohen honk. It cuts by way of every thing.”
On her early solo albums, the label insisted she stick to the title Mama Cass, although she needed to be billed as Cass Elliot to tell apart herself from the group. A brand new recording contract with RCA in 1972 lastly gave her the inventive freedom to file beneath her personal title and to chop extra refined materials by the likes of Randy Newman and Judee Sill. Even so, none of her solo albums offered properly. She earned extra consideration by way of dwell exhibits and TV appearances although, even right here, the fats jokes adopted. On a Friars Membership Roast of actor Carroll O’Connor, Dean Martin launched her as “a really huge lady”. “At present, no person would say that,” Elliott-Kugell stated. “However, on the time, it was a part of the schtick of who she was.”
In these years, Cass was working so relentlessly, well being issues started to develop that have been, tragically, ignored. Elliot-Kugell’s e-book recounts a minimum of 5 cases of her mom fainting or experiencing exhaustion that weren’t correctly checked out by a health care provider or seen as indicators of one thing extra critical. “It’s onerous to sit down right here as we speak and never say, ‘How can nobody have seen this?’ she stated.
In 1974, Cass was booked to an intensive, and really profitable, residency in London. After finishing the final present in July she retired to an condominium in Mayfair the place, a number of hours later, she died in her sleep from a coronary heart assault. In her e-book, Elliot-Kugell works diligently to uncover the origin of the ham sandwich story. She found it was cooked up by her supervisor, Alan Carr, simply so nobody speculated that medicine was the wrongdoer. Nicely-meaning as that will have been, it turned her mom’s dying right into a punch line. The mere truth that folks fell for it bold-faces the bias that surrounds weight. “It was simpler for the general public to simply accept the concept of somebody being gluttonous after they’re heavy,” Elliot-Kugell stated. “It made the story salacious.”
After her mom’s dying, Elliot-Kugell was raised by Cass’ sister, the singer-songwriter Leah Kunkel and her husband, the famed session drummer Russ Kunkel. In her teen years, she pursued her personal musical profession by serving to to type the group Wilson-Phillips (which mixed off-spring members of Brian Wilson’s and John Phillips’ clans). Sadly, she obtained pressured out earlier than they recorded a single track as a result of, she stated, her voice was too loud. Her experiences within the music enterprise have helped her recognize how uncommon her mom’s success was in that subject. On the similar time, Cass’ early dying makes her surprise what she may need achieved had she lived. “I believe she would have ended up on Broadway and would have accomplished plenty of residencies in Las Vegas. She in all probability would have owned her personal manufacturing firm.”
She believes, too, that within the trendy period of body-positivity, she would have confronted much less prejudice. Regardless, her legacy lives on. Just lately, Cass has skilled an sudden resurgence on TikTok, the place the audio from her 1969 anthem of individuality, Make Your Personal Sort of Music has been utilized in 46 thousand movies, amassing over 32m views. In line with Elliot-Kugell, even that dumb ham sandwich story has a optimistic facet. “It’s simply one other manner of remembering someone,” she stated. “It’s nice to know that, even 50 years later, she’s nonetheless a part of the dialog.”
This text was amended on 7 Could 2024 to appropriate the spelling of Carroll O’Connor’s first title.
