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MAMA CASS HATES HYPOCRISY
By
Gordon Coxhill
In
an elegant mew cottage, a full
throated yell away from
Cass,
dressed in a patchwork dressing
gown, and showing a pink
nightdress underneath as she
walked, made herself comfortable
by stretching the whole of her
avoirdupois on the couch-and
believe me, Cass still has a lot
of dupois.
Time
To Myself
“Isn’t
it great,” she said, breaking
into a smile, “I’ve been
here for four days and hardly
anyone knows it.
I prefer it that way
because I’m here to work, and
I need to have some time to
myself to get ready, fo it.
Hey, did you know that
Paul McCartney used to live in
this house, and Warren Beatty
and Andre Previn and Mia Farrow?
It seems to be a popular
little place.”
Strange
girl is Cass.
The last time we met, it
was during one of the coldest
spells of last winter.
While most of us were in
our beds Cass had been up the
night before our chat, making a
snowman in the middle of
Who
said the personality cult was
vanishing from music?
“I
like to be warm all the time,”
she explained. “but that’s
not the real reason for the
fire.
I just love looking at
it, watching the flames dancing
and seeing faces in them.
I find it great to
meditate by.
I was down here at six
this morning drinking cups of
tea ‘til it was coming out of
my ears, and staring into the
fire.
“It’s
funny; at home I have to get up
about seven thirty to feed my
daughter who’s two and a half
now.
You’d think that when
she wasn’t with me, I’d have
a lie in, wouldn’t you?
“But
no, as soon as I was up, I have
to get up.
Anyway, there’s so much
to do, even though I’m looking
upon this trip as something of a
holiday.
“I’m
going to see Graham Bond tonight
at the Royal Albert Hall, then
Im hoping on going to
Yes,
Cass really is going to buy a
house in
“I
came over with Graham Nash and
David Crosby,”
Cass continued.
“Did you hear about
David’s tragedy? No? The group
was in the studios, doing work
on their next album, when David
got a message that his fiancée
had been killed in an accident.
“Of
course, they dropped everything,
and David and Graham came to
She
paused for a few moments and
though of her close friend, then
lit a cigarette, and proceeded
to tell me about the record that
has put her back into the
charts, “It’s Getting
Better.”
“It
was in the charts for eighteen
weeks in the States, and sold
half a million.
And it’s sold close on
a hundred thousand here, wow,
that’s phenomenal.
“I
just can’t believe it.
I’m so excited because
I’ve been very quiet for the
past year, and suddenly I’ve
got a big hit in
Exclusive
“I’ve
discovered that ‘It’s
Getting Better,’ has been
covered by Paul Jones, and I had
an exclusive on that song, so
mine must have been first.
I’ve had an album out
which includes the song for
quite a while, so I guess
that’s where Paul heard it.
“I
have never approved of cover
versions so you can imagine how
embarrassing it was for me when
I heard that Harmony Grass had a
hit with ‘Move In A Little
Closer Baby,’ which I didn’t
have released in England, only
in America.”
Just
then, Cass noticed the smoke
pouring forth from her log fire.
Logs by courtesy of Organisation
Unlimited.
“My,
just look at all that smoke,”
she said in what seemed like
authentic glee.
See how it’s making my
Stars and Stripes dirty.
Still it’s not the
first time the American flag has
got a little dirt on it.”
From
that remark, which resulted din
hoots of laughter from the
small, unintroduced assembly, I
gathered that Cass still felt as
strongly about the war in
“Yes,
we all do,” she confirmed,
“about
And
does Cass feel like many
American musicians today that
music should be an extension of
one’s own life?
“Yes,
by which I mean that if you are
honest in your life then you
will be honest in your music,
then when a writer interviews
you, he’s going to get honest
answers.
“If
you don’t do it that way, you
get hypocrisy, and God knows,
we’ve had enough of that with
generations gone by.”
Although
Cass said, in a not so gentle
hint that she didn’t want to
spend the rest of her life
talking about the Mamas and
Papas, she told me that after
the demise of that much-missed
group, she found herself taking
a few steps backwards.
“It
wasn’t a case of starting over
again from scratch,” she said,
“not quite in the respect that
I knew pretty much how to
perform.
“The
problem was finding the kind of
music that I wanted to sing, and
I’m not even sure I know now.
“At
the moment, if I like a song
I’ll sing it.
I haven’t really
settled into a style that I feel
I can stick to yet and perhaps I
never will.
“A
good deal of what the Mamas and
Papas did was my type of music
at the time and even now, as
you’ll be able to tell from my
next single, I harp back
musically to those early days.
“At
first, soon after leaving them,
I purposely didn’t’ do any
double tracking on my records
because I didn’t want people
saying I’d left the group but
was stealing their sound.
“On
my next album, “Bubblegum,
Lemonade And Something For
Cass,” I’ve doubletracked,
overdubbed and I really like it.
“Towards
the end, the Mamas and Papas’
music got too intricate, too
involved and over produced, and
that’s part of the reason I
left.
“In
the past two years I’ve
learned that simplicity isn’t
only a minimum of vocal
tracking.
Cass
would have been in
Another
upcoming project for Cass is a
lead role in a stage musical.
“If the money is
forthcoming, I’ll be doing
it,” she told me, starting
rehearsals in November.
“It’s called ‘The
Yellow Drum’ and it’s a
great play from a Truman Capote
short story, ‘The Grass
Harp’ and in it I’ll be
playing Babylove, who has six
illegitimate children by six
different fathers, and she’s a
traveling evangelist, trying to
earn just enough to keep her
children alive.” Cass showed me to the door and she watched as I turned the corner, but I have a sneaking suspicion she was looking for the grocer! |