The Mamas & the Papas from 1964 to 1965. The last member to join was Cass Elliot, Doherty's bandmate in the Mugwumps, who had to overcome John Phillips' concern that her voice was too low for his arrangements, that her physical appearance would be an obstacle to the band's success, and that her temperament was incompatible with his. The group considered calling itself the Magic Cyrcle before switching to the Mamas & the Papas, inspired by the Hells Angels, whose female associates were called "mamas". The quartet spent the period from early spring to midsummer 1965 in the Virgin Islands "to rehearse and just put
The Mamas & the Papas the record in the fall of 1966, playing a series of precarious and reportedly bizarre shows. At a September 1966 concert at Fordham University in New York City, the band was noted by Gus Duffy and Jim Mason of their co-headlining band, Webster's New Word, as being clearly "high, drunk, or tripping. When they got on stage, it was clear that these people shouldn't be on stage ... They tumbled onto the stage, shambled around, and just got nowhere. After completing their brief East coast tour, the group started work immediately on its third album, "The Mamas & The Papas