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In 1976, John Phillips, (of the Mamas and the Papas), collaborated with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (of the Rolling Stones) on an album to be produced by the two Stones under their newly formed partnership, The Glimmer Twins. This came about after Phillips wrote some songs for Jagger, and Jagger told him that if Phillips would record them, The Glimmer Twins (under their Rolling Stones label) would produce the album and distribute it through Atlantic Records. The resulting sessions featured Phillips as lead vocalist with Jagger, Richards, the Stones' then new guitarist Ron Wood, former guitarist Mick Taylor, and others.
The project took longer than expected, primarily because Phillips and Richards were having drug problems, and Jagger lost interest. Consequently, by the time Phillips finally finished the album in 1978, Atlantic Records declined to distribute it, so for 30 years, the 10 tracks recorded by those rock luminaries only existed in an occasional bootleg. Now, 17 years after Phillips death, the completed album plus five other songs have been issued as "John Phillips Pussycat," the third in a series of albums called "John Phillips Presents."
Upon listening to the album, I liked it a lot and found it much more than a curiosity for ardent fans. This is good music reflecting well on both Phillips talents and the Stones. One track, "She's Just 14," would have fit well in what, at the time, was to be the Stones next album, "Some Girls." Richards, Woods and Taylor combine to give the tracks a lot of kick-butt guitar and bass. The accompanying booklet, from which most of this information was taken, is long on history but lacks a track by track accounting of the personnel involved, probably because the producers didn’t have and weren’t able to get that information.
Tim West is a columnist and opinion page editor for The Naperville
(Illinois) Sun newspaper and a fan of both rock and folk music.
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