Publishers Weekly
03/11/2024
Elliot-Kugell debuts with an earnest if incomplete portrait of her mother, “Mama” Cass Elliot (1941–1974) of the folk rock group the Mamas and Papas, who died at 32 when the author was just seven. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen to a middle-class family in Baltimore, Elliot developed a childhood struggle with overeating that lingered throughout her life, though it failed to dull her ambition (she vowed in high school to become “the most famous fat girl that ever lived”). After briefly touring the country as a solo act, she moved to California in 1965 to join the Mamas and the Papas with married bandmates John and Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty. Among other highlights, Elliot-Kugell covers in loving detail her mother’s “incredible, almost psychic intuition” for pairing musicians “who would sound good together” (she inspired the formation of Crosby, Stills, and Nash). Also detailed are a string of disappointing romances with men who were mostly interested in the rock and roll lifestyle, and how Elliot’s weight was mocked in an entertainment industry rife with fatphobia (on TV shows, she was sometimes literally cast as “the fat girl”). Unfortunately, the narrative’s loose ends lend it an unfinished feel, and while Elliot-Kugell promises that “questions asked in” her mother’s lifetime “receive their answers in mine,” the answers are anticlimactic or incomplete, as in the oblique discussions of larger health problems—likely exacerbated by a rigorous touring schedule—that preceded Elliot’s death. Despite some bright moments, this loses its way. (May)
From the Publisher
My Mama, Cass is a daughter’s search for the mother she lost. In these pages, Owen Elliot-Kugell reconstructs who Ellen Naomi Cohen really was, which is not an easy task, as the woman who became Cass Elliot was a very complex person: unimaginably talented, independent, loving, warm, and completely dedicated to her one and only child. She brings her mother back to life for herself and for Cass’s millions of fans. The spotlight is back on my friend, and it’s great to see her again.”
—Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas
“A unique perspective from the daughter of a rock star. General audiences will get a fresh glimpse into the manipulative music business, which demanded ceaseless hard work, personal sacrifices, and a determined focus on glittery celebrity.”—Library Journal
“Filled with time-warping anecdotes, Elliot-Kugell’s searing tribute is an important work that fills in the gaps and corrects the apocryphal lore about an essential era and a key figure in American music.”—Booklist
Library Journal
04/01/2024
Elliot-Kugell recounts both the saga of her famous mother, the Mamas & the Papas star Mama Cass Elliot (a.k.a. Ellen Cohen, 1941–74), and her own personal and professional life. She begins with Cass's upbringing in a middle-class New York Jewish household and her dream of Broadway stardom. The book charts the rise of Mama Cass's career amid the folk music boom of the 1960s. She performed with the bands the Big 3, the Mugwumps, and finally the Mamas & the Papas. The latter scored a No. 1 single ("Monday, Monday") on a No. 1 album If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. Elliot-Kugel describes the implosion of the harmony-based group after three tumultuous years, Cass's catalytic folk-rock role, her subsequent less-than-stellar solo recording and television career, and her death at age 32, when the author was only seven years old. She also reveals stories about her life as a child, raised by her aunt and grandmother, her own nascent recording career, marriage, and motherhood. VERDICT A unique perspective from the daughter of a rock star. General audiences will get a fresh glimpse into the manipulative music business, which demanded ceaseless hard work, personal sacrifices, and a determined focus on glittery celebrity.—Dr. Dave Szatmary
Kirkus Reviews
2024-02-14
The daughter of the late singer aims to set the record straight on a score or two.
Though Cass Elliot (1941-1974) died from a heart attack, an urban legend immediately arose that Elliot—well known for her weight and the object of countless fat jokes, some embedded in the lyrics of the Mamas & the Papas—asphyxiated on a ham sandwich. Elliot-Kugell, the daughter of Elliot and a man who briefly played bass for the group, recounts the short life she knew with her mother and the bereavement that followed. Some of this material comes from other sources, although she was on the scene. One interesting anecdote: She was but six months old gnawing on one of Henry Diltz’s film canisters when Cass engineered the meeting that would produce Crosby, Stills & Nash; their sound “was first imagined by my mom, who instinctively knew what her three friends were capable of creating.” By this account, it’s clear that Elliot was troubled, as was her daughter, packed off to a boarding school that practiced what the denizens called “the Thorazine shuffle.” Much of the narrative is rather by the numbers, and the prose is largely workmanlike: “To millions of her fans, she was known as ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot, the Earth Mother figure of the Los Angeles hippie scene of the late 1960s. But to me, she was just my mom.” While her quest to discover the source of the ham-sandwich canard takes a surprising turn, to say nothing of her search for her biological father, of greater interest are her devoted efforts to carve out her own career in music, hampered by conglomerate mergers and the industry’s demand for big-ticket stars in place of long-tail artists.
Well intended and of some interest to fans, but a footnote in musical and pop-myth history.
