All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart

Few songs have captured the contradictions and ambiguities of the 1960s as memorably as California Dreamin, the iconic folk music single that catapulted The Mamas & The Papas into rock and roll history. In All the Leaves Are Brown, SiriusXM producer Scott Shea details how John Phillips, Denny Doherty, Michelle Phillips, and Mama Cass Elliot became standard-bearers for California counterculture, following their transformation from folk music wannabes to rock sensations and chronicling the tumultuous events that followed their unexpected success.

Shea gives a definitive account of the groups short time together, from their hitmaking approach with legendary producer Lou Adler to Johns unique songwriting to their tours and friendships with other musicians riding the folk-rock wave. He explores the emotional vicissitudes that came with being in the Mamas & the Papas, from Casss unrequited love for Denny, his affair with Michelle, and the ebb and flow of dysfunction in John and Michelles marriage. Shea explains how it all came to a crashing end with Johns brainchild, the Monterey Pop Festival, which should have launched them even further into the rock music stratosphere, but only served to be their undoing. Through interviews with former bandmates, session musicians, family members, and many others, All the Leaves Are Brown is a layered and revelatory tale of overnight stardom and its many pitfalls.