On this day, January 10, 1939, Philip Blondheim was born. Oh, you mean Scott McKenzie.

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Last edited Mon Jan 10, 2022, 10:52 AM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for the reminder, Wikipedia.

Sun Jan 10, 2021: On this day, January 10, 1939, Philip Blondheim was born. Oh, you mean Scott McKenzie.

Scott McKenzie

Background information
Birth name: Philip Wallach Blondheim III
Born: January 10, 1939; Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.
Died: August 18, 2012 (aged 73); Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Website: scottmckenzie.info

Scott McKenzie (born Philip Wallach Blondheim III; January 10, 1939 – August 18, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter. He was best known for his 1967 hit single and generational anthem, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)".

Early life

Philip Wallach Blondheim III was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 10, 1939, as the son of Philip Wallach Blondheim, Jr. and the former Dorothy Winifred Hudson. His family moved to Asheville, North Carolina, when he was six months old. He grew up in North Carolina and Alexandria, Virginia, where he became friends with John Phillips, the son of one of his mother's friends. In the mid-1950s, he sang briefly with Tim Rose in a high school group called The Singing Strings. He graduated high school from St. Stephens School for Boys in Alexandria.

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Scott McKenzie - San Francisco - Monterey 1967 (live)
101,350 views • May 22, 2016

Rockin' BluesTakis
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Scott McKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
Monterey Pop Festival - County Fairgrounds Monterey, California
Friday, June 16, 1967 - Sunday, June 18, 1967

Tue Dec 21, 2021: "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray."

Fri Dec 21, 2018: "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray."

In honor of today's being the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere), I am pleased to present to you this timely musical selection:

Not long ago, we had a thread about sunsets at various northern latitudes. Here's more on that:

The length of the day on December solstice

In addition, over the years, DU has had threads about '60s musician "Scott McKenzie." These posts went into some of the history of the Mamas & the Papas.

Sun Jan 10, 2021: On this day, January 10, 1939, Philip Blondheim was born. Oh, you mean Scott McKenzie.

Sun Jan 10, 2021: More; much, much more; about Scott McKenzie and the crowd he ran with back in the '60s

Tue Aug 16, 2016: Scott McKenzie

That was not his real name, and is this ever a long story. There used to be someone at the local history room of the Alexandria Library who was well-versed in this subject.

"Scott McKenzie" spent his high school years in Alexandria, Virginia. I've been on the street on which he lived many times, but I'd have to look it up to see which house he lived in. He lived a few blocks from where Jim Morrison lived.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII

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According to Michelle, "Tamar put on perfect airs around my dad and when it became necessary she would sleep with him." Whatever works, I guess. That perhaps explains why, in early 1961, Gil didn't have a problem with allowing his underage daughter to move to San Francisco with the daughter of a violent pedophile. Soon enough, Tamar found herself in a relationship with Journeyman Scott McKenzie, and bandmate John Phillips began coming by Tamar and Michelle's room on a nightly basis.

It wasn't long before Michelle, still just seventeen, was romantically involved with twenty-six-year-old Phillips, despite the fact that John was still married to Adams, with whom he by then had two children, Laura MacKenzie Phillips having been born on November 10, 1959 in Alexandria. Father Gil, who had himself recently taken a sixteen-year-old bride (one of a string of six wives), still wasn't concerned. And it's probably safe to assume that Phillip's father, who had pursued his bride when she was just fifteen, wouldn't have been too concerned either.

In October 1962, a year or so after meeting Michelle, John curiously found himself in Jacksonville, Florida (alongside Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport) for "two weeks of rest and rehearsal" during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a guy who "never felt comfortable with political advocacy," John seems to have had a keen interest in Cuban affairs. Two months later, on New Years Eve 1962, Holly Michelle Gilliam became John Phillip's second wife. She also joined his reconfigured band, as did Canadian Denny Doherty, who had formerly been with the Mugwumps alongside Cass Elliot. This new lineup was dubbed the New Journeymen.

The newly-formed trio promptly embarked on a curious Caribbean adventure, arriving first at St. Johns, where John has claimed that they "snorkeled on acid" for several weeks. They next ferried over to St. Thomas, where they set up camp at a dive beachfront boardinghouse known as Duffy's. Soon enough, Ellen Naomi Cohen, better known as Cass Elliot, showed up with John's nephew, who was a childhood friend of hers. Cass had been born in Baltimore but had grown up in Alexandria, where, like Phillips, she had attended George Washington High School.

A Homer's Odyssey

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 24, 2006

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This morning Opsasnick is driving down a winding street in Alexandria. Anybody else would have seen just the tall oaks and blooming crape myrtles shading neat Tudors and Colonials. Opsasnick looks more deeply and sees something that isn't here anymore.

"We're entering Morrison country," he says dramatically, like a tour guide to a secret landscape. "These are the streets he walked on, these are the fields he played on, the sidewalks he traveled to visit his friends." ... That would be Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors.

"There's his girlfriend's house where he went around back and threw pebbles up to her window to get her to come out," Opsasnick continues. "Here is the corner where he would hold court and act crazy. . . . I can almost visualize a teenage Morrison shuffling from his house." ... The house is a stone-fronted Cape Cod in the 300 block of Woodland Terrace. Opsasnick started with the relatively well-known fact that Morrison lived here from the middle of his sophomore year through graduation from George Washington High School in 1961. Then he gave his subject the full Opsasnick treatment: He investigated those 32 months as if they involved the birth of the nation or the fate of the Earth.

The resulting brand-new opus -- "The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia" -- fits well with the other five volumes that make up the author's investigations: another encyclopedic search-and-rescue mission down offbeat byways of the local past.

Out of the Attic - Two Port City musicians with flowers in their hair

Alexandria Times, February 4, 2016

One of the iconic songs of the counterculture movement in the 1960s was sung by Alexandria’s Philip Blondheim. Better known as Scott McKenzie, Blondheim sang the vocals to “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” written by fellow Alexandrian John Phillips.

Born in Jacksonville, Fla. in 1939, Blondheim and his family moved to Asheville, N.C., where his father died a few months after Philip’s second birthday. His mother moved to Washington, D.C. in early 1942 to find work in the war industries, but she initially couldn’t afford an apartment of her own, so Blondheim stayed with his grandmother and other family members until 1946, when he joined his mother in an Alexandria townhouse.

Blondheim and Phillips, who later on gained fame with The Mamas and the Papas, both grew up in Alexandria in the mid-1950s and attended George Washington High School. They sang in separate vocal groups in the mid-1950s and met at a party hosted by Phillips at his apartment on Ramsey Alley. The two formed part of a quartet called The Abstracts, modeled after vocal quartets like The Four Freshmen and the Four Preps.

Out of the Attic - From Del Ray to Monterey Pop Festival

Alexandria Times, February 11, 2016

At the center of Alexandria’s connection to rock and folk music fame was John Phillips. Born in South Carolina, John and his family lived in Del Ray for much of his childhood.

He attended George Washington High School, like Cass Elliot and Jim Morrison, graduating in 1953. He met and then married his high school sweetheart, Susie Adams, with whom he had two children, Jeffrey and Mackenzie, who later became famous in her own right.

Phillips and Adams lived in the Belle Haven area after high school, but John left his young family at their Fairfax County home to start a folk music group called the Journeymen in New York City. The new group included lifelong friend and collaborator Philip Bondheim, later known as Scott McKenzie, also from Del Ray.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation

Sun Dec 12, 2021: The Monkees and Laurel Canyon

This lengthy article is from a really nifty series. There's all kinds of stuff on the webpage, so don't complain to me if you don't agree with everything you see.

The site is Dave McGowan's Center for an Informed America. It looks like something that's going to disappear some day.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation

It has several parts:

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part I

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part II

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part III

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part IV

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part V

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part VI

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part VII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part VIII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part IX

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part X

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XI

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XIII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XIV

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XV

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XVI

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XVII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XVIII

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XIX

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XX

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XXI

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XXII

The part we're looking at is Part XVI.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part XVI

BY DAVE MCGOWAN | JUN 13, 2009

At the time of the ‘serendipitous’ encounter on Sunset Boulevard, Stills was living at the home of Barry Friedman, a former circus clown, fire-eater, TV producer, and freelance publicist. To say that his home was a bit odd would probably be an understatement. According to folkie Nurit Wilde, “It had a bathtub in the middle of the living room and a secret room behind the bathroom where people carried on liaisons.” The massive bathtub sat right in front of the equally massive fireplace. As Friedman himself would later acknowledge, “This was a very strange house.”

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Most members of the Springfield also took up residence in our favorite secluded canyon. Richie Furay initially moved in with Mark Volman of the Turtles, who already had a place on Lookout Mountain Avenue. After marrying in March of 1967, Furay got his own place right on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Neil Young, ever the recluse, found himself what has been described as a “shack” at 8451 Utica Drive. And Stills eventually moved into Peter Tork’s home, also on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. It is unclear whether Palmer and Martin took up residence in the canyon.

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The ties between the bands actually ran far deeper than their mutual fondness for cheesy television appearances. Stephen Stills, it will be recalled, auditioned to be a Monkee, as did singer/songwriters Harry Nilsson and Paul Williams, and Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night. Stills and Tork remained close friends and frequently jammed together. Indeed, both Tork and fellow Monkee Mickey Dolenz joined the Springfield on stage at various local events. And Stills, Young and Dewey Martin all sat in on Monkees recording sessions.

On July 2, 1967, guitarist extraordinaire Jimi Hendrix played the Whisky and reportedly blew the roof off the place (figuratively speaking, that is). Shortly thereafter, he moved into Peter Tork’s house in Laurel Canyon. By the middle of July, Hendrix had joined the Monkees tour as their opening act. He was dropped after just a few dates, however, due to the fact that Monkees fans couldn’t quite wrap their heads around Jimi’s brand of music.

Throughout the summer of 1967, Stephen and Dewey’s Malibu home became the site of informal jam sessions involving Stephen Stills, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Miles, David Crosby … and Monkee Peter Tork. Stills played bass, deferring lead guitar duties to Hendrix. All of them ultimately ended up living at Tork’s Laurel Canyon spread, which, as previously mentioned, featured a gaggle of young groupies who spent an inordinate amount of time lounging around the pool in various states of undress.

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It goes on.

This part can also be found at

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVI