Before soundtracking the Summer of Love as The Mamas & The Papas, musicians John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot, and Denny Doherty honed their talents in groups like The Smoothies, The Journeymen, The Halifax Three, The Big 3, and The Mugwumps. In Gettin' Kinda Itchie, author Richard Campbell traces the circuitous lives of these groups and individuals-featuring secret marriages, hilarious hijinks, and FBI investigations-as they each contributed to the sound, style, and persona that set the foundation of American folk rock. The definitive untold Prequel to the story of The Mamas and The Papas is documented with scores of firsthand interviews, over 400 images, and 600 endnotes cultivated from from a forty-year collection and archive. The book includes a twenty-five page appendix with the most comprehensive Sessionography, Discography and Concertography for all of the various groups. Crossing paths with the likes of David Crosby, Gordon Lightfoot, John Sebastian and others, Gettin' Kinda Itchie traces the fascinating intersecting circles of these artists during the early 1960s folk-revival. This book is about the groups, music and experiences that created The Mamas & The Papas. This is four musicians' journey from coffeehouses, nightclubs and gymnasiums, before leaving folk music behind and taking flight.
The harmonies of The Mamas & The Papas soothed and satisfied millions amid the reverberating cacophony of the times. Social upheaveal, riots and the war in Vietnam were largely quelled with dreams of California and a song about the common reality of the first day of the week. The group stood as troubadours of a generation and a powerful American answer to the British invasion. Between 1965 and 1968 the group garnered top ten hits like "Monday Monday," "Creeque Alley," "Dedicated to the One I Love," "I Saw Her Again" and "California Dreamin'" which would ultimately go on to sell tens of millions of records.