‘Papa’ Denny Doherty dies after short illness
Singer and songwriter Denny Doherty, a member of the hit 1960s vocal group the Mamas and the Papas, died Friday. He was 66.
His sister, Frances Arnold, told the Associated Press that Doherty died at his home near Toronto after a short illness. He had suffered kidney problems following surgery in December and had been put on dialysis.
The Los Angeles-based quartet – Doherty, John Phillips, his wife Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot – had six Top 10 hits in a brief, two-year career that strongly influenced the “California sound” of the 1960s and ‘70s, starting with “California Dreamin’ ” in 1966 and including “Monday, Monday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.”
The Mamas and the Papas appeared at the landmark 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, then broke up amid personal tensions and exhaustion. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Elliot died in 1974 and John Phillips in 2001.
“Denny was like a throwback to another era,” said Lou Adler, the group’s record producer and manager. “He was a real dashing, handsome guy with a great romantic voice. I imagine if you heard Denny alone you would not think rock ‘n’ roll, but with John Phillips’ arrangements and with the musicians that we were using, it just fit perfectly against those four-part harmonies.”
Doherty was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was a member of the folk group the Halifax Three.
He met the Phillipses in New York’s Greenwich Village and formed the New Journeymen with them. Elliot eventually joined and they ended up in Los Angeles.
Doherty wrote the group’s hit “I Saw Her Again,” but he might be best known for his love affair with Michelle Phillips, which hastened the band’s disintegration.
“Well, they lived the life,” Adler said Friday. “It was the time, and it was an incestuous group. Maybe that’s why the harmonies were so good.”
Doherty recorded two solo albums after the group disbanded, and later participated in a short-lived reunion. In the mid-‘90s he had success in the role of the Harbormaster on the PBS children’s show “Theodore Tugboat.”
Doherty’s main creative outlet in recent years was a play he co-wrote and appeared in on stage in New York and other cities, “Dream a Little Dream: The Mamas and the Papas Musical,” which related the group’s saga.