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I bought Richie Havens’ first album Mixed Bag when it came out in 1967, or maybe it was my brother’s copy, I don’t quite remember. At any rate this was one album that I listened to over and over again. One of the most striking cuts on Mixed Bag was his cover of Dylan’s Just Like A Woman.

I think that it was Paul McCartney who said that for a guy who didn’t know how to play the guitar, Richie Havens could play one hell of a guitar. In this video you cans see how he uses an open tuning and some unusual fingerings to produce a unique sound. His powerful rhythmic strumming, combined with the movement up and down the neck of parallel bass and treble notes, produces a full sounding arrangement. I have seen Richie play live alone and with only a percussionist. He doesn’t need a band. Richie’s voice is so unique and his phrasing is so precise that he is immediately recognizable whenever he sings.

George and Ira Gershwin’s They All Laughed, which has become a jazz standard, was written for the 1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film, Shall We Dance. Since then Everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to Bobby Darin has recorded it. Here is the original film version, with George Gershwin’s orchestrations, and Fred and Ginger dancing. Note that Ginger Rogers really does do at least part of what Fred does backwards and in heels.

Cass Elliott was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1941. At the time, her mother thought her name was Ellen Naomi Cohen. Her stage name came about, first in high school, when she began calling herself “Cass,” taking the name from actress Peggy Cass. Elliott was the name of a friend, who died young. Cass transformed herself from an awkward high school kid to a show business professional by taking this new name and going out to do the job. She dropped out oh high school and went to New York to become an actress. Elliott got a part in The Music Man on Broadway, but was beat out by barbara Streisand at her next audition for the part of miss MarmelsteinI Can Get it For You Wholesale. She returned to school in 1962 and attended American University in Washington D.C. where she began singing in a trio called The Big Three.

After The Big Three broke up she sang briefly in a group called The Mugwumps which also included Denny Doherty, who went on to form The New Journeymen with John and Michelle Phillips. In 1965 Cass was vacationing in the Virgin Islands as were Doherty, John and Michelle. During that vacation Elliott was invited to become a permanent member of the group, which renamed itself The Mamas and the Papas. Trouble also started within the group at the moment of it’s renaming. Cass was in love with Denny, who had no interest in her, however Denny and Michelle began to have an affair on the night that the new group name was chosen.

The Mamas and the Papas had a great deal of commercial success, largely because of Cass Elliott’s powerful singing voice, which tended to dominate, and her charismatic personality. In 1968 the Mamas and the Papas broke up, due to the tensions caused by Denny and Michelle’s affair. Cass went on to have a solo career, which she craved.

On July 29, 1974, according to Michelle Phillips, Cass called her excitedly from her hotel room in London, where she had just done two performances at the Palladium to standing ovations each night. Cass was elated, feeling that she had reached the pinnacle of her career. That night she died in her sleep, of a heart attack.

Here is Mama Cass singing Make Your Own Kind Of Music at the Hollywood Palce. She is introduced by that night’s host, Sammy Davis, Jr.