A Cold New York Winter Created One of California’s Most Famous Songs
Some of the most famous songs about California were written under its sunshine.
“California Dreamin’” was born in the exact opposite place.
In the early 1960s, John and Michelle Phillips were living in New York City. Michelle had grown up in California, and during one bitter East Coast winter, she desperately missed the warmth and sunshine of home.
One night, John began working on a melody.
Michelle helped him finish the song, turning a simple case of homesickness into something much bigger: a song about wanting to escape from where you are and return to somewhere that feels better.
At the time, The Mamas & The Papas did not yet exist in the form that would make them famous.
And strangely, they were not even the first artists to record “California Dreamin’.”
Singer Barry McGuire recorded an early version, with John and Michelle among the backing singers. But producer Lou Adler quickly realized there was something special about the song.
When The Mamas & The Papas recorded their own version, much of McGuire’s backing track was retained, but one crucial element changed.
Denny Doherty replaced McGuire on lead vocals.
Suddenly, the song found its identity.
The haunting harmonies of John Phillips, Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot surrounded Doherty’s voice, while session musicians helped create the distinctive folk-rock sound that would become inseparable from 1960s California.
Even the famous guitar introduction had its own story.
Songwriter and musician P.F. Sloan created and played the instantly recognizable opening figure — just a few notes that somehow seem to announce the entire mood of the song before anyone begins singing.
Then came another unusual touch.
Instead of a conventional guitar solo, jazz musician Bud Shank played the haunting alto-flute passage in the middle of the record.
The combination was unforgettable: winter sadness wrapped inside warm California harmonies.
Released in late 1965, “California Dreamin’” did not immediately explode.
A Boston radio station began giving the record heavy airplay, and listeners on the cold East Coast seemed to understand its longing perfectly.
The song began climbing.
By 1966, it had reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and transformed The Mamas & The Papas into stars.
Yet its lasting appeal goes far beyond the charts.
“California Dreamin’” works because almost everyone has experienced its central feeling.
Being somewhere you don’t want to be.
Remembering somewhere you would rather be.
And imagining that life might somehow feel warmer if you could just get there.
What began as Michelle Phillips missing California during a freezing New York winter became one of the defining songs of the 1960s.
More than half a century later, those opening notes can still
make listeners dream of somewhere else.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
