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In LA we found out Cass was living in a crash pad off Sunset Strip with Jim Hendricks and his girlfriend, Vanessa. Well, we were broke and definitely needed a place to crash. Flat rock. I'm going nuts. John has got all these great songs. But, he and I and Michelle are getting nowhere until one afternoon we're in Cass' living room going over an arrangement and Cass is ironing and she starts to sing along. Suddenly there's real power. We have to sing harder to keep up with her. And that's when Harvey showed up. No, not the big invisible rabbit. Harvey was an overtone - a fifth voice that was created when the four of us sang together and it all worked! It wasn't folk music anymore, man. At long last it was really and truly rock and roll! |
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Cass gets on the phone and calls her friend
Barry McGuire. Now, John and Michelle didn't
know McGuire and I'd only met him once back east with Cass when he was with the New Christie Minstrels.
But Cass calls up McGuire who's got Eve of Destruction on the charts, a huge hit, and is in the middle of
recording another album.
He comes over to the apartment, gives a listen; "Yeah, man sure, you guys sound really good. Look why don't you
come down and sing for my producer Lou Adler." Ooooh. End run man:
Cass is in the group. So that night the four of us show up down at Western Recorders - Studio Three.
It's a real hit factory. John unpacks Chunga, his big old twelve string guitar, tunes it up ... All the leaves are brown . . . California Dreamin'
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So, there we are Western Recorders, Lou Adler in the booth. We sing him California Dreamin' and this voice comes
out of talkback: "You got any more?" Got any more ! Sure we got more!
We sang him everything we hand. We sang him Straight Shooter,
Monday Monday, Go Where You Want To Go.
And this voice from the booth just kept asking for more. "What else you got? What else you got?" Finally Cass says:
"That's all we got. What do you think?" And he says: "I think we can do business." (RealAudio Clip) Flat rock, flat rock, flat rock! |
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Then, Lou comes out of the booth and says: "What do you guys want ?" And John, man, like only John can - right into business mode: "No, no, Lou it's not what we want, man, it's what we need. See, what we need is a steady stream of money from your office to our house, but we don't have a house yet. And even if we had a house we don't have a car to get there in." "OK, OK, here's five thousand dollars, go find a house and I'll send somebody out to buy a car for you." It was a second hand Buick convertible we called Harold The Bleak. Now, I thought we'd made the other side or the river. Cass in the group, we've got money, a recording contract . . . |
But, what I took to be dry land was, in reality, a swamp. . . | |