John Phillips Goes it Alone...

Growing up with baby boomers as parents, most of the subsequent generation was relegated to listening to the Beatles, the Stones and the American folk related stuffs of the ‘60s era. Included amongst it all was the Mamas and the Papas, which as a group could be pinned as pop purveyors of a more rugged music. That’s not to say that the ensemble took a valid musical form and turned it into something ridiculous – there was musical merit to what the group did. But it didn’t necessarily figure the most highly regarded clutch of tunes ever written despite chart success.

After the unraveling of the ‘60s, which ostensibly ended in 1968, John Phillips, one of the two aforementioned Papas, went on to a solo career. The bulk of his solo recording was completed by 1970. Seeing as he lived another thirty plus years, a few compiled albums cropped up around the time of his death to better explain the weird haze that existed in not just Phillips’ life during the ‘70s, but all of the counter culture.

Despite the oddity that this singer and song writer would endure, his first solo disc, released in 1969 and titled John, the Wolf King of LA, demands examination in the same breath as some of the decade’s stronger country rock albums. With his former band trucking in sucrose drenched pop confections, Phillips, while maintaining his song writing acumen, was able to display some of his more bucolic tendencies.

Songs like “Holland Tunnell” aren’t anything other than late sixties rock tunes. But that doesn’t mean that the delivery of Phillips’ vocals, in such an understated manner, render the song or the album as an entity something of sub par fair.

Granted, John, the Wolf King of LA was recorded with a slew of studio players from around the Los Angeles area, including folks tied to the Wrecking Crew, which at one time included Leon Russell, although he doesn’t perform here. Each tune, perhaps due to the simplicity in which Phillips arranged all of this, comes off as a country radio smash. It’s a wonder that the album didn’t do a brisk business based upon that, but also due to Phillips’ notoriety tied to his previous band.

Either way, “Let It Bleed, Genevieve,” a track about Phillips’ then girlfriend, could have been given to Bob Dylan and turned into a standard. As it is, the track, bustling with piano and some supplemental percussion recalls any number of country tinged acts from the era. It’s a shame that this track – as well as the rest of the disc – didn’t get the sort of backing from its label that could have helped. But that was a potentiality of working with Dunhill Records, even as the imprint was distributed by ABC.

We could blame the ‘60s hangover for disallowing the album from making it into the general consciousness. That being said, Phillips repeatedly stated that he purposefully buried his vocals in the mix because of his reticence to be out front. The re-mastered version of the album takes care of the problem, but that lone aspect to the original release may have ostensibly removed the pop viability of the album.