From: gcmccoury@yahoo.com   
      
   by Cassandra Szklarski   
   Canadian Press   
      
   January 19, 2007   
      
   TORONTO (CP) - Denny Doherty, the Canadian member of the popular '60s folk   
   group Mamas and the Papas known for their iconic hits such as "California   
   Dreamin"' and "Monday, Monday," has died.   
      
   He was 66. His older sister Frances Arnold said the singer-songwriter died   
   at his home in suburban Mississauga on Friday after suffering an aneurysm in   
   his abdomen.   
      
   The Halifax-born Doherty was the lead male singer in the group whose other   
   hits included "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Dedicated to the One I   
   Love."   
      
   "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."   
      
   "He was a raconteur, a storyteller and he would tell these great, great,   
   great stories of some of the great moments with the Mamas and the Papas and   
   some of the bad moments 'cause they lived some of the great and bad   
   moments," said Leblanc.   
      
   Doherty co-wrote the songs "I Saw Her Again Last Night" and "Got a Feelin.'   
   "   
      
   Despite being only together for three years, from 1965 to '68, the Mamas and   
   the Papas had 10 hit singles over five albums.   
      
   Doherty, along with (Mama) Cass Elliott and John and Michelle Phillips, sold   
   an estimated 20 million records. But internal squabbling, heavy drug use and   
   a web of love triangles ultimately led to their breakup.   
      
   In 1974 the 30-year-old Elliot choked and suffered a fatal heart attack   
   while eating a sandwich in London. 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."   
      
   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.   
      
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