#66: Twelve Thirty by the Mamas and the Papas
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #14
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Twelve Thirty”
Lyrics: “Twelve Thirty”
John Edmund Andrew Phillips was born in Paris Island, South Carolina, in 1935. His father was a military officer and John was sent to Linton Hall Military School from age seven to eleven. He hated the school and its corporal punishment. In his autobiography, Phillips recalls he also thought it was creepy that “nuns used to watch us take showers.” In high school he assembled several doo-wop groups. After he dropped out of a Naval Academy in 1953, John Phillips studied at a men’s college until 1959. In 1958 he formed a doo-wop group named the Abstracts, fashioned after the Four Preps and other popular groups of the era. The Abstracts changed their name in 1959 to the Smoothies. Another member of the group was Philip Blondheim III, who later changed his name to Scott McKenzie. The Smoothies played at night clubs in New York City with chorus girls and comedians.