1995 Interview

JOHNSON

Where does folk music fit in with the influences in your music because then you did the folk circuit?

PHILLIPS

Well, we started off, we grew up in Virginia. And that was really our - what was around us all the time. We were drawn to jazz, because we were sort of beatniks, really, rather than hippies, or whatever, flower children [laughs]. So we wanted to sing modern harmonies, like Lambert, Hendrix and Ross. Dave Lambert did a lot of our arrangements for us, as a matter of fact. I don’t know if you remember Dave, the father of bebop, he’s called. He met an untimely death on the New York throughway, changing a tire. On the way to a recording session a car got behind him and rear-ended him. So at that time we were The Smoothies. [Laughs] And we had always played guitars and banjos and things, and Scott and I, the survivors of The Smoothies, Bill Cleary and Michael Ren, threw the whole thing up in the air and said forget it. Bill still works with us as a consultant and so forth. And what is Mike doing?

McKENZIE

He’s an English - last thing I knew, he was an English teacher and had about twenty-seven kids.

PHILLIPS

Yeah. He was the funniest guy in the whole group, and played piano and all that stuff. So we decided we would be a folk group. We put an ad in the local newspaper, The Village Voice, for banjo/guitar players. A fellow, Dick Wiseman showed up, answering the ad.

McKENZIE

The professor.

PHILLIPS

The professor, yeah. And he turned out to be about the world’s virtuoso banjo player, and still is.

McKENZIE

As a matter of fact, Pete Seeger would say that.

PHILLIPS

Yeah.

McKENZIE

Because Pete used to send - I believe I’m right on this. He used to send tapes to Dick for his opinion and everything and they would get together and talk -

PHILLIPS

Yeah.

McKENZIE

And play banjo together. More than one airport, they’d sit on the luggage carousel or whatever and take out their banjos and play together.

JOHNSON

So you were in the Village during the transition from the beatnik era into the folk era?

McKENZIE

Yeah.

JOHNSON

What was that like? What was the cultural, political scene likeduring that time?

PHILLIPS

God, who remembers?

McKENZIE

I remember everybody as trying to be very practiced at being anarchists, and yet living comfortably.

PHILLIPS

[Laughs]

McKENZIE

But I don’t know. I went to the Gaslight Cafe and I think it was Hugh Romney who later became Wavy Gravy. I don’t know.

PHILLIPS

Yeah.

McKENZIE

He was reading some poetry. This is how hip I was. You were there that night.

PHILLIPS

What night?

McKENZIE

We went to hear Hugh Romney and I didn’t know that after everyone, I mean, after someone read a poem or something, the way you applauded was like this [snaps fingers], because it was in the basement of an apartment building, and the tenants would complain if everybody clapped. So I’m sitting there and I’m trying to be really hip. I’m about twenty-years-old, squeaky clean white, I mean, just came down the river in a bubble. And Hugh Romney finishes this [imitates deep voice] thing, and me, the young, cool dude there, sitting there, I go [claps loudly].

PHILLIPS

And I’m going - [laughs].

McKENZIE

It was like, you know. [Laughs] Everybody turned and looked at me and everything.

PHILLIPS

It’s never been the same, ever since.

McKENZIE

Yeah.

JOHNSON

But I guess people think back to the time of the Village as sort of the early days of what became a major movement from the beatnik to the hippies, so there had to be some spark of creativity.

PHILLIPS

I think it already happened, really.

JOHNSON

Really?

PHILLIPS

Yeah. As The Journeymen, which we became, Scott and Dick and I, we did three albums for Capitol and our first job was at Folk City, Gerdes’ Folk City in the Village. And it was with Dylan and Lightnin’ Hopkins. It was Dylan’s first job in New York, also, and our first job, and Lightnin’s about four hundredth [laughs] job in New York. I remember Dylan borrowed twenty bucks and never paid it back, and [laughs] -

McKENZIE

But he used it well.

PHILLIPS

And you tuned Lightnin’ Hopkins’ guitar for him.

McKENZIE

Something like that.

PHILLIPS

[Laughs] He couldn’t tune the guitar.

McKENZIE

I could tune a guitar really well.

PHILLIPS

Yeah. Scott was a master tuner.

JOHNSON

That’s very good. Erik Darling said that’s his whole struggle with a twelve-string is to keep it in tune.

PHILLIPS

Oh yes. A twelve-string’s almost impossible.

McKENZIE

I’ve never known anybody could tune a twelve-string right. A couple studio players, but -

PHILLIPS

Well, now that they have good electronic tuners, it’s a lot easier.

McKENZIE

It says it’s right. But it doesn’t sound right.

PHILLIPS

[Laughs]

JOHNSON

So we got an idea of John’s influences. What were your musical influences, Scott?

McKENZIE

I hate to be uninteresting again here, but it’s pretty much the same. That was one of the things that attracted us to each other was that we liked almost exactly the same music. We both wanted to sing. We both loved groups. We both - I think John was really more enamoured of women and men singing together. I hadn’t really thought that much about it. But I loved The Modernaires. I love harmonies. I still do. I’d rather sing in a group than myself any day.

PHILLIPS

Yeah, groups are a special breed from a single performer.

McKENZIE

I am not a group singer. I’m a human being!

PHILLIPS

Yes. [Laughs]

JOHNSON

There’s a lot of conflict having groups. I know a lot of people -

McKENZIE

Oh, boy.

JOHNSON

And you, John, having a major group, The Mamas and The Papas. How was trying to hold that together? Was it a challenge?

McKENZIE

[Laughs]

PHILLIPS

Well, one doesn’t try to hold Cass and Denny and Michelle together. [Laughs] It’s a useless task to start with. You just sort of stay out of the way and let things roll as they can.

McKENZIE

Oh, God.

PHILLIPS

By majority vote, they thought. [Laughs]

McKENZIE

[Laughs]

PHILLIPS

I did all the arranging and write the songs and all that and slowly get my way.

McKENZIE

Ooh, that should be interesting.

PHILLIPS

That’s the best way to get it done.