John Phillips (musician)
Jagger and Keith Richards would produce and play on the album, as well as former Stone Mick Taylor and future Stone Ronnie Wood. The project was derailed by Phillips’ increasing use of cocaine and heroin, substances that he shot into his body, by his own admission, “almost every fifteen minutes for two years”. In 2001, the tracks of the Half Stoned or The Lost Album album were released as Pay Pack & Follow a few months after Phillips’ death.
In 1975 Phillips, still living in London, was commissioned to create the soundtrack to the Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie. Phillips asked Mick Taylor to help out; the film was released in 1976.
In 1981 Phillips was convicted of drug trafficking; subsequently, he and his television star daughter Mackenzie Phillips made the rounds in the media, instructing kids and their parents how not to become addicts. This public relations campaign helped reduce his prison time to only a month in jail. Upon release, he re-formed The Mamas & the Papas, with Mackenzie Phillips, Spanky McFarlane (of the group Spanky and Our Gang) and Denny Doherty. Throughout the rest of his life, Phillips toured with various versions of this group.
Phillips was divorced from Waite in 1985. In 1986, his best-selling autobiography, Papa John, was published. With Terry Melcher, Mike Love and his former Journeyman colleague Scott McKenzie, he co-wrote the number 1 single for the Beach Boys, “Kokomo”, which was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Song Written specifically for a Motion Picture or Television category (it lost to Phil Collins’s “Two Hearts”, from the film “Buster”).
In the 1990s, his years of addiction led to the need for a liver transplant in 1992. Several months later, however, he was photographed drinking alcohol in a bar in Palm Springs, California, as published in the National Enquirer newspaper. Phillips was questioned about the photo on the Howard Stern radio show, and explained, “I was just trying to ‘break in’ the new liver”.
The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame on Jan 12th, 1998.
John Phillips died on March 18, 2001 in Los Angeles of heart failure at the age of 65. He is interred in an outdoor crypt at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California, where he had lived with his fourth wife, Farnaz. He died just days after completing sessions for a new album. Phillips 66 was released posthumously in August 2001.
Claims of sexual relationship with his daughter
In September 2009, John’s daughter Mackenzie Phillips claimed in a new memoir, High on Arrival, that she and her father had a ten-year incestuous relationship. She stated that the relationship began when she was 18 years old in 1979, after Philips raped her while they were both under the influence of heavy narcotics on the eve of her first marriage.
Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 September 2009 in which she told Winfrey that her father injected her with cocaine and heroin. According to Phillips, the incestuous relationship ended when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. These doubts resulted in an abortion, which her father paid for, “and I never let him touch me again.”
Genevieve Waite, John’s wife at the time the claimed abuse occurred, denied the allegations and said they were totally incongruous with his character. Michelle Phillips, John’s second wife, also stated that she had “every reason to believe [Mackenzie’s account is] untrue.”
Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie’s half-sister, stated that she believed Mackenzie’s claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the supposed relationship had ended. Bijou Phillips, Mackenzie’s other half-sister, said in a statement that Mackenzie had informed her of the relationship when Bijou was 13 years old, but also stated, “I’m 29 now, I’ve talked to everyone who was around during that time, I’ve asked the hard questions. I do not believe my sister. Our father is many things, this is not one of them.” Jessica Woods, the daughter of Denny Doherty, said that her father knew of the relationship.
Solo discography
John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) (04/1969)
Brewster McCloud (12/1970) Soundtrack with Merry Clayton vocals
John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) (04/05/1994 Edsel Records UK CD reissue)
Pay Pack & Follow (04/24/2001)
Phillips 66 (08/21/2001)
John Phillips (John, The Wolfking Of L.A.) (09/12/2006 Varese Sarabande CD reissue)
Jack Of Diamonds (07/10/2007)
Pussycat (09/09/2008)
Man On The Moon (07/21/2009)
References
^ The E! True Hollywood Story, Episode: