Leah Kunkel Leah Kunkel Leah Kunkel (born June 15, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter and entertainment law attorney. Leah Kunkel was born Leah Cohen on June 15, 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the younger sister of Cass Elliot from the folk rock vocal group The Mamas & the Papas. In 1968 she married American drummer and music producer Russ Kunkel. Following her sister's death in 1974, Kunkel was given custody of Cass Elliot's daughter, Owen. The couple also raised their son, Nathaniel, an Emmy Award winning sound engineer. After being signed to Dunhill records, Kunkel recorded her first record "Billy"
The Mamas & the Papas peaking at number eleven. It was the only Mamas and Papas single to chart higher in the UK than in the US. The fourth and final single from "Papas & The Mamas" was "For the Love of Ivy" (July 1968), which peaked at number eighty-one in the US and did not chart in the UK. For the second time, Dunhill returned to their earlier work for a single. In this case it was "Do You Wanna Dance" from the debut album, released as a single in October 1968. It failed to chart in the UK and reached number seventy-six in