California Dreamgirl

I've already done a post on Michelle Phillips but, since it's summertime I thought another post on the ultimate California sunshine girl would be nice. Michelle “stepped out of a dream,” John Phillips would rhapsodize in his 1986 autobiography, Papa John. She was “the quintessential California girl.… She could look innocent, pouty, girlish, aloof, firey.” Michelle says, “John was 25, married with two children, from an East Coast Catholic military family. He had gone to Annapolis, he performed in a suit and tie—he had never met anyone like me!” Her uniqueness in John’s eyes was no small thing. Michelle to John was a fascinating hybrid just over the Zeitgeist’s horizon: a street girl, to be sure (“She would have fit into the Ronettes or the Shangri-Las perfectly,” he’d later say), yet seasoned in high culture and political idealism—and with that angelic face. John used to tell Michelle she was the first flower child he had ever met. Michelle went on to be John's muse for most of the hit singles for they're group The Mamas and the Papas.