PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2007-10-31 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Did Mama Cass' Vocal Range Expand After She Was Hit on the Head by a Pipe? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • A book of canonical television sitcom plots might include an entry like the following: Oddly enough, although that last entry might seem a bit goofy even for a sitcom plot, it's something that has been claimed as happening in real life. The subject of the claim was singer Mama Cass Elliot, most famous for her stint with the pop group The Mamas and the Papas, who related the story behind her increased vocal on many occasions, including during a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone: Could a knock on the head really increase a singer's vocal range? Did Mama Cass actually experience such a phenomenon? Whether or not the answer to the first question is yes, the answer to the latter one is no. Although Cass Elliot apparently was hit on the head by a pipe a few months before she officially joined The Mamas and the Papas in late 1965 (at least, group member Michelle Phillips later said she remembered such an incident), the notion that the accident increased the upper end of her vocal range by three notes is quite suspect. Elliot had been singing since she was a child and had engaged in a number of professional singing ventures (both live performance and recording) prior to joining The Mamas and the Papas, but nothing from that period evidences her possessing a lesser vocal range. Her recordings with pre-Mamas and Papas groups such as the Big 3 and the Mugwumps demonstrate her to have a vocal range similar to that displayed in her work with the Mamas and the Papas, and other musicians who knew her during her pre-Mamas and Papas days attested to her already being possessed of a fine voice: So what, then, was the origin of the pipe tale? Was it yet another fictional amazing-but-true story concocted by a publicist? Was it something Cass Elliot believed to be true, even if the accident in fact had no effect on her vocal range? According to Russell Gilliam (sister of Michelle Phillips), the claim was a cover story cooked up after the fact to explain why, after Cass had hung around and performed with the other three singers who would eventually form the Mamas and the Papas (John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty) during their 1965 sojourn in the Virgin Islands, leader John Phillips was still unwilling to accept her as a member: Author Eddi Fiegel expanded on the real explanation behind the pipe story in Dream a Little Dream of Me, her 2005 biography of Cass Elliot: Although the knocked in the head with a pipe tale may not have originated as a television sitcom plot, it featured the upbeat, positive ending of one: Even the reluctant John Phillips eventually acknowledged the value of Cass Elliot's vocal abilities and personality, and she was a key element in the tremendous popularity and success that followed as the Mamas and the Papas turned out a string of hit records in the mid-1960s. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url