Mamas and Papas' Denny Doherty dies
TORONTO (CP) - Halifax-born Denny Doherty was remembered Friday as the "angelic voice" that carried the '60s folk group the Mamas and the Papas through such memorable hits as "California Dreamin"' and "Monday, Monday."
Doherty died early Friday at his home in suburban Mississauga after suffering an aneurysm in his abdomen, said his sister Frances Arnold. He was 66.
"Everybody used to think that John Phillips, who wrote the songs, was also the main voice of the group, but it wasn't - it was the angelic voice of Denny Doherty," said Larry Leblanc, Canadian editor of Billboard Magazine.
"He was often overlooked but it was really his voice that carried the group."
The group's hits also included "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Dedicated to the One I Love." Doherty co-wrote the songs "I Saw Her Again Last Night" and "Got a Feelin.' "
Despite being together for just three tumultuous years marked by drug use and destructive love triangles, the Mamas and the Papas had 10 hit singles over five albums. The band broke up in 1968 amid internal squabbling.
Doherty, along with (Mama) Cass Elliot and John and Michelle Phillips, sold an estimated 20 million records.
In 1974 the 30-year-old Elliot suffered a fatal heart attack. John Phillips, the group's chief songwriter, died in 2001 at age 65.
"What made the group special was their haunting and sumptuous harmony singing," according to "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll."
Kim Cook of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences compared Doherty to other top performers of the time.
"He was one of a group of Canadians of that era that would have included Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others who were heading to the U.S. to make music and in some cases, fame and fortune," Cook said.
"He's an artist that, in terms of career accomplishments perhaps didn't rank with some of those artists but still had a fine career and really was a key component in some absolutely vital and compelling music."
Doherty started his music career in Montreal in 1960 as the co-founder of the Colonials, which later became the Halifax Three.
He launched an acting career in the '70s and appeared on Broadway in the 1974 play "Man on the Moon." Later in Halifax, he joined John Neville at the Neptune Theatre where he was in "The Taming of the Shrew," "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Cabaret."
The Mama and Papas had a short-lived comeback in 1982, adding two new faces to the classic group. John's daughter MacKenzie Phillips and Elaine (Spanky) McFarlane.
Doherty was involved in a number of musical projects, including an autobiographical musical, "Dream a Little Dream," which premiered in Toronto in 2001.
He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996.
Doherty also dabbled in television, playing the role of the affable harbourmaster in the children's TV series "Theodore Tugboat."
The show, originally produced in Halifax by CBC, featured a cast of small, radio-controlled tugboats. Doherty provided the narration and the voices for all the characters.
Though the backdrop for the show was known as the Big Harbour, the model set - complete with a huge water tank - was actually a fairly accurate rendering of Halifax harbour.
The show attracted a huge following among its young fans in the mid-1990s when it appeared on CBC and later on PBS, the non-profit public broadcaster in the United States.
Every show featured Doherty's musical, mellifluous voice telling the stories of Theodore the tugboat and his friends, many of whom were named after places in Atlantic Canada.
Doherty suffered kidney problems following surgery Dec. 14 and was put on dialysis, Arnold said. He was released from hospital last week, and Arnold said he sounded tired when she spoke with him just days ago.
"It's got an unreal quality to it, I just can't get it through my head," Arnold, 78, said by phone from Halifax. "We weren't expecting it."
She said Doherty was depressed about his decline in health, and had been making plans for an adventurous boat trip across the Atlantic.
"He was a very energetic, busy active person and it was hard for him to make that adjustment, I think," she said.
Arnold says the first time her mother heard Doherty on the radio it was him singing "California Dreamin'."
"My mother stood in the kitchen and cried," she says.
Doherty, who was married twice, is survived by his siblings Frances, Joe, Denise and Joan and children John, Emberly and Jessica. Both of his wives predeceased him.
Funeral arrangements have yet to be made, Arnold said.
Toronto Maple Leafs Of 1967 To Be Saluted
(TORONTO) -- The Toronto Maple Leafs announced Friday that the 1967 Stanley Cup Championship team will be reunited and recognized in a pre-game ceremony when the Edmonton Oilers visit Air Canada Centre on February 17.
The game also marks the 80th anniversary of the Toronto Maple Leafs first game in 1927. Several players have confirmed their participation for the game next month including; George Armstrong, Bobby Baun, Johnny Bower, Brian Conacher, Ron Ellis, Aut Erickson, Larry Hillman, Larry Jeffrey, Red Kelly, Dave Keon, Jim Pappin, Marcel Pronovost, Eddie Shack, Allan Stanley, Pete Stemkowski, and Mike Walton.
“This is a terrific opportunity for our organization and our loyal fans to celebrate the achievement of a great team,” said John Ferguson, general manager of the Maple Leafs. “It’s really about saluting the last club of that Leafs’ era just before NHL expansion on a milestone anniversary of 40 years. It’s an occasion for them to enjoy their company once again and it also gives our fans the chance to cheer them as a group one more time.”
The 1966-67 edition of the Toronto Maple Leafs captured the franchise’s 11th Stanley Cup and fourth of the decade. The team defeated the reigning two-time Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens in the sixth game on May 2, 1967 as Canada was celebrating its centennial.
Ten members of the 1967 Maple Leafs would later be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. A total of 11 players from the 1967 team played on the three other Stanley Cup winning teams in 1962, 1963, 1964. They are: Johnny Bower, Larry Hillman, Bob Baun, Allan Stanley, Red Kelly, George Armstrong, Dave Keon, Bob Pulford, Eddie Shack, Frank Mahovlich and the late Tim Horton. Terry Sawchuk, Bruce Gamble, Horton, and coach and general manager Punch Imlach are the only gentlemen from the 1967 team that are deceased.
The Maple Leafs compiled a record of 32 wins, 27 losses, and 11 ties in 70 games in the 1966-67 regular season. The team’s 75 points placed them third in the standings behind Chicago (94 points), and Montreal (77). The Maple Leafs eliminated the first-place Chicago Blackhawks in six games in the opening round before completing the same feat in the Stanley Cup Final against the Canadiens.
Dave Keon led the team in regular season scoring with 52 points (19g, 33a) and he finished 12th among all NHL players in points that season. He earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as ‘the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs’ that year. Jim Pappin scored the Stanley Cup winning goal and he led all NHL players with seven goals and 15 points during the 12 games of the 1967 post-season. Forty years ago, the team was bolstered in the nets for the third and final season by two of hockey’s greatest goalies; Johnny Bower at age 42 and Terry Sawchuk at age 37. The unlikely playoff run came on the heels of a regular season in which the team needed three other goalies (Gamble, Gary Smith and the late Al Smith) at various points of the season. In addition, King Clancy spelled an ill Punch Imlach for a 10 game stretch behind the bench and led them to a 7-1-2 record.
Interestingly enough, the team had a 10-game losing streak from January 15 to February 8 scoring just 15 goals before regrouping to capture the Stanley Cup over their national rival. The hallmark of the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs was their experience. They sported the oldest lineup to ever win the Stanley Cup, with an average age of 31. Seven players were over 35 and 12 members were over age 30. Bower and Stanley (age 41) were the oldest members of the team in the last year of the Original Six.
Doctor Who - Did you see the chainsaw episode? ***Updated***
We've had a few readers write in to report a strange glitch with Doctor Who season 2, which they rented from NetFlix.
At exactly the 32:40 mark of disc 1, episode 2 ("New Earth") the video switches to chainsaw-horror movie (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), which includes a very graphic scene of someone getting his legs cut off with a chainsaw. The bonus material on the disc can't be accessed either, which will allow you to quickly check to see if you have a problem disc.
How can something like this happen? Most DVDs are made up of two layers, so layer 1 is Doctor Who, while layer 2 is the psycho-chainsaw movie. Companies send their material off to be replicated in large replication facilities that handle movies and TV shows from many different companies. There must have been a glitch in the production of Doctor Who which caused the two different layers to be combined, and was caught after a few sets had made their way out of the facility. We've only had two reports of this issue, and both people rented the discs from NetFlix.
If you've purchased a set like this from a store, please drop us a line, but please do not email to say that your set is fine; we expect there are only a handful of incorrect sets out there.
Update: John Halpin wrote to let us know he had the same problem, but he also said that the disc was labeled "Not for retail sale - Rental only" on it. That's great news, and it means that consumers shouldn't have this problem on the sets they purchase.