All the Leaves are Brown: How the Mamas and Papas Came Together and Broke Apart
Due Out on Backbeat Books June 1, 2023
A Word From The Author
My name is Scott Shea, and I am the author of All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart due out on Backbeat Books on June 1, 2023. In my professional life, I have been the producer of Seize the Day with Gus Lloyd on the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM since 2012. I’ve been with the channel for 11 years and with SiriusXM for 15 years. In my time there, I’ve produced five original audio documentaries that have aired nationally.
Scott Shea
Producer
Seize the Day with Gus Lloyd
Documentary - Pope Francis
(2 parts)
Mother Teresa
Submitted for New York Festivals Awards.
Pope Benedict XVI
Submitted for New York Festivals Awards.
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, author 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.
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Editorial Reviews
Drawing on previously published memoirs of band members and new interviews with those who knew them, radio producer Shea crafts an impersonal but intriguing compilation of the accounts, song development, and relationship entanglements that led to the fast rise and extraordinary fall of the Mamas & the Papas. The book primarily focuses on John Phillips, from his troubled childhood as the son of an abusive, alcohol-addicted parent, to his complicated first marriage and his attempts to become a serious folk musician. Then Phillips met aspiring model Michelle Gilliam, and their relationship became the catalyst for his best-known songs, “California Dreamin’” and “Monday, Monday.” Phillips soon brought Cass Elliot into the group, along with tenor Dennis Doherty. As a band, the Mamas & the Papas recorded five albums, with 10 hits, in the 1960s. Drugs, affairs, jealousies as Mama Cass becomes the breakout star, and an embarrassing set as the closing act for Phillips’s Monterey International Pop Festival soon led to the band’s demise. VERDICT Shea’s matter-of-fact journalistic style prevents sensationalism from overtaking this study of the Mamas & the Papas’ powerful influence and importance.
― Library Journal
“Scott Shea takes us on the wild ride that was The Mamas & The Papas with terrific detail, refreshing honesty, and perhaps best of all, a true love of their music. All the Leaves Are Brown had me from page one.”—Sheila Weller, author of New York Times bestseller Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation
“Given the personal lives of these singers, Scott Shea’s book might qualify for the horror genre rather than history or biography. But then there’s the music—which was startling, distinctive, and unforgettable. For a generation, these songs have served as monuments to major moments in life. All the Leaves Are Brown is a hard read for its sorrow, but rewarding for its insights into the art of a unique and profoundly influential band.”— Mike Aquilina, songwriter, TV host, and co-author of Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth
“The Mamas & The Papas’ story is wilder than any work of fiction and Scott Shea is the first author to tell it objectively and in full. This is a book I could not put down.”—Bill Flanagan, author of Fifty in Reverse: A Novel