I likewise feel a great loss. The Mamas and the Papas were a big part of my upbringing, "California Dreaming" still being in my all-time Top 10. "Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)" may have affected me even more -- it was a major part of my college life soundtrack.
As I told Mike yesterday off-board, I foolishly missed a chance to meet Denny a couple years ago. Someone was performing a one-man show with impressionistic reflections on the M&Ps at the Duplex, a bar/cabaret I used to frequent, and I got wind that Denny was coming to its opening night. I sat in the upstairs bar, fully planning to engage him in conversation, but the man who ascended the stairs was hunched, tired, in a swallowing coat disproportionate to the weather, hardly seeming eager to talk to anyone. So I left him alone, to my current regret. I wish I had told him, as I told Mike last night, that "Look Through My Window" has perhaps the most gorgeous and pure tenor vocal I've ever heard.
Denny recorded a little-heard solo album in '74. Here's how I reviewed it for AMG:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ac6ktr69kl5xThanks, Papa,
Gaz.
