Denny Doherty

About

From Wikipedia:

Dennis Gerrard Stephen Doherty (November 29, 1940 – January 19, 2007) was a Canadian musician. He was a founding member of the 1960s musical group the Mamas and the Papas for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

In June 1966, The Mamas & The Papas travelled to London for a promotional visit. On June 12, they went to the discotheque Dolly’s and met with John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Some days later, George Harrison invited them to his Esher’s home; Paul McCartney joined them in the evening.

We were working on the second album, and I believe we took some of those acetates with us. We went over to George Harrison’s place, and we played some stuff for him and McCartney… we just hung out for a while. We were going to play the Royal Albert Hall, but we weren’t strong enough for that, so we just hung out. It was an uneventful time in England. It was cool meeting The Beatles. Lou set it up through the record companies, ’cause we didn’t know where the fuck we were going. I just remember getting in a limo and we were going to Harrison’s place, somewhere out in the country, and there were Ferrari’s in the driveway. We played him some of our stuff, he played some of their stuff, and we sat around smokin’ and drinkin’ until four in the morning. We did the pub-crawl, driving around in a black limo with black windows, smoking a big spliff. It was a promo trip.

Denny Doherty – From “Go where you wanna go : the oral history of the Mamas & the Papas” by Matthew Greenwald, 2002

When it came to listening to the group’s new demos, Harrison lived up to his reputation as the silent Beatle and was quietly noncommittal. “He just listened intently, and wouldn’t say anything,” says Doherty. “It was all very tenuous.” But then, almost as if on cue, McCartney arrived. “I think he was coming by to see George about something, but we just happened to be there and he listened to the tapes too. He wanted to hear what was going on in America and Hollywood.” McCartney listened to “I Saw Her Again” and as it came to the false start “I saw her,” which Lou Adler had decided to leave in the track on one of the choruses, he immediately remarked, “It’s a mistake, isn’t it?” “Yeah,” Denny admitted, “but we left it in cause it sounded good.” “Yeah, we’ve done that a lot,” replied McCartney. “Where?” asked Denny, immediately intrigued as to where this could possibly have happened on a Beatles record. “You don’t know, do you?” laughed McCartney. “Tell me where,” Denny asked again. “Uh-uh,” said McCartney. “If you can’t hear them, there are no mistakes.“

From “Dream A Little Dream Of Me – The Life Of Cass Elliot” by Eddi Fiegel, 2015

Last updated on March 12, 2023