In a coffeehouse Sebastian sat” brings into the picture John Sebastian, the New York City-born singer-songwriter who at the time was part of the Even Dozen Jug Band and would soon form one of the most beloved American rock bands of the era. Both Canadians, they’d been working together in a folk trio called the Halifax Three in their home country. First, there were “Zal and Denny, workin’ for a penny, tryin’ to get a fish on a line,” which refers to Zal Yanovsky and Dennis (known as Denny) Doherty. In the meantime, other similarly inclined folk artists were coming into one another’s orbits. It wasn’t all that easy, they quickly discovered, and the couple, along with Doherty formed the New Journeymen in the meantime. 31st, 1962, moving to New York where they began writing songs together while Michelle did modelling work to earn some cash.īy late 1964, with the rock scene exploding, John and Michelle had become, like many others, “itchy” to move away from folk. They fell in love and, after John divorced his first wife, married on December. John Phillips, then 26, had been singing with a folk group called the Journeymen when he met 17-year-old Michelle Gilliam during a tour stop in San Francisco. The first line, “ John and Mitchy were getting’ kind of itchy just to leave the folk music behind,” refers to John and Michelle Phillips activities as folk singers in the early ’60s. It starts in the years leading up to the seemingly preordained coalescence of the four singers. The song’s story line only makes passing reference to the Mamas and the Papas’ time on the island though, and never mentions Creeque Alley by name. There they were still performing folk music, at a club called Sparky’s Waterfront Saloon, and basically trying to make ends meet and figure out their futures. The soon-to-be members of the Mamas and the Papas spent time there shortly before changing their musical direction and taking on their new name.
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“Creeque Alley” (pronounced creaky) is a real place, one of a series of alleys (actually named Creeque’s Alley and owned by the Creeque family) on the docks on St. The lyrics are stocked with names and places, some of which may have been (and still are) unfamiliar to fans of the group.įirst, there’s the song’s title. The song, credited to the group’s husband-and-wife co-founders John and Michelle Phillips, chronicles the events leading up to the 1965 creation of the Mamas and the Papas, which also included Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty. Numerous autobiographical songs have been written since the dawn of rock, but few have told the story of a band’s formation as vividly and colourfully as The Mamas and the Papas’ “Creeque Alley.” Released as a single in late April 1967, it climbed to No5 on the Billboard Hot 100 it also appeared on the quartet’s third album, “Deliver”,
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