Celebrities fabricating stories about their past lives (or hiding ways they’ve achieved great talent or beauty) is certainly nothing new, but Mama Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas fame claiming that a freak accident caused a three-note expansion of her vocal range is one of the weirdest tales to come out of the 1960s pop world. It was a story that Elliot herself perpetuated in the press.
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But those who were close to her and her bandmates had other ideas for why Elliot would willingly credit a head injury for improving her vocal range. And sadly, those ideas fall in line with other false rumors about Elliot that the public has bought into for virtually the same reason.
Mama Cass Elliot Said This Injury Expanded Her Vocal Range
Whether among her bandmates or the greater music industry as a whole, “Mama” Cass Elliot’s warm, lilting voice stood out from her contemporaries. It was this talent that led her to be the only member of the Mamas & the Papas who enjoyed success as a solo artist following the quartet’s split. Ironically, one of the oddest stories about her voice might have stemmed from the fact that Elliot had to fight to be in the group in the first place.
First, the story: in a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone, Elliot claimed she got “hit on the head by a pipe that fell down, and my [vocal] range was increased by three notes. They were tearing this club apart in the islands, revamping it, putting in a dance floor. Workmen dropped a thin metal plumbing pipe, and it hit me on the head and knocked me to the ground. I had a concussion and went to the hospital. I had a bad headache for about two weeks, and all of a sudden, I was singing higher. It’s true. Honest to God.”
The islands in question were the Virgin Islands, which is where John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty first started creating what would become the Mamas & the Papas. Elliot was there, too, much to John’s chagrin. The Journeymen alum had his qualms about Elliot joining, and those close to the musicians claim that some of those hesitations played into Elliot’s strange story about rogue, range-expanding plumbing fittings.
A Freak Accident Or A Face-Saving Rumor?
During a time when body inclusivity was a distant dream of a buzzword, John Phillips had no problem telling Cass Elliot that she was “too fat” to be in his band. According to individuals close to Elliot and Phillips, when he finally allowed her to join and the Mamas & the Papas got famous, the band had to change its origin story. Suddenly, they needed an answer for why, exactly, it took so long for Elliot to join the group with a voice like hers.
Michelle Phillips’ sister, Russell Gilliam, refuted this pipe story, saying, “The entire time Cass was in the Virgin Islands, Cass wanted to be in the group. John refused to let her into the group for one reason and one reason only. She was too fat. Once they got famous, he couldn’t say that. They made up this story about that she couldn’t hit a certain note, and that it changed when she was hit with the pipe.”
Biographer Eddi Fiegel wrote, “It is easy to see why Cass would have been as keen as John to gloss over some of these original facts. Rather than have to admit that her size had prevented John from letting her in the group, John’s original yarn about Cass not having the right vocal range was reinstated.”
Strangely, another rumor would hang over Elliot’s legacy after a false story began circulating that said she died in 1974 from choking on a ham sandwich. Preconceptions about her weight let this story take root, even though she died of a heart attack.
Demeaning tall tales aside, Elliot left behind an astounding musical legacy of a genuine talent that surpasses any small-minded or fatphobic opinions about women’s bodies. That’s true, honest to God.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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