Review by Booklist Review
She was a "Mama" long before she became a mother. Cass Elliot, whose powerhouse voice drove the iconic 1960s folk-rock group, the Mamas and the Papas, was the epitome of that era's hippie-chick--Earth mother personae: warm and bawdy, extroverted and welcoming. When she had a child on her own, speculation rose about her daughter's paternity. That's just one of the mysteries Elliot-Kugell delves into in this probing memoir of her mother's blazing but all-too-brief life. A large woman, Elliot was the target of relentless body-shaming, and her physical appearance often stood in the way of industry professionals and colleagues seeing her for who she really was. In telling the story of her mother's life, Elliot-Kugell candidly discusses Cass' career challenges and celebrates the tenacity behind Cass' commitment to not only a solo career but also single motherhood. 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.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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)
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Review by Library Journal Review
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
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
