Looking back to the heady days of the 1960's, some of the songs from that era still have the power to make a grown man cringe. Unfortunately John was responsible for one such song, the huge 1967 hit San Francisco ( Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair ), which he wrote for his friend Scott McKenzie. Although it's actually not a bad song, it will be forever associated with the naive Hippy idealism which many people now look back on with some embarassment.
On the other hand, many of the songs John wrote for that archetypal Sixties singing group, The Mamas and The Papas, were top quality. His most famous and probably best composition, California Dreaming, written in 1966 with his then wife Michelle, has deservedly survived as a classic of it's type.
Surprisingly, one of the better songs recorded by the group - Dedicated To The One I Love - was not a John Phillips song, but was written by Ralph Bass and Lowman Pauling way back in 1957.

Sadly, as well as embodying the head-in-the-clouds Sixties mentality, John also took on board the whole lifestyle. He never managed to overcome a well-established drug habit, not helped I'm sure by a long friendship with Keith Richards , and he died of heart failure in 2001 at the age of 65.