Phonograph record:Bubble Gum, Lemonade, & Something for Mama

The most successful member of The Mamas and the Papas to embark on a solo career after the group disbanded in 1968, Mama Cass released eight albums before her untimely death from a heart attack in 1974. Her first solo smash in 1968, "Dream a Little Dream of Me," still featured the group as backup, but her 1969 hit, "Make Your Own Kind of Music," proved she could do it on her own. Insisting on dropping her "Mama" nickname, Cass Elliot developed into a popular TV personality and nightclub act. The leading California-based vocal group of the '60s, the Mamas and the Papas epitomized the ethos of late-'60s pop culture: live free, play free, and love free. Their hit "California Dreamin'" endures as an anthem to those heady times and reportedly helped trigger the westward migration of wayward young hippies. The group made it big but lost it all when the quartet's complicated romantic entanglements and chemical excesses thwarted their creative potential.