Editing Cass Elliot (section)

=== 1962–1964: Early career ===
After leaving high school to pursue an entertainment career in New York, Elliot toured in the musical ''[[The Music Man]]'' in 1962 under the name Cass Elliot,<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 28, 1962 |title='Music Man' Marches in for Closer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/163185650/ |work=Rockland County Journal-News |pages=6}}</ref> but lost the part of Miss Marmelstein in ''[[I Can Get It for You Wholesale]]'' to [[Barbra Streisand]]. Elliot sometimes sang while working as a cloakroom attendant at The Showplace in [[Greenwich Village]], but she did not pursue a singing career until she moved to the Washington, DC, area to attend [[American University]] (not [[Swarthmore College]] as mentioned in the biographical song "Creeque Alley").

America's folk music scene was on the rise when Elliot met banjoist and singer [[Tim Rose]] and singer John Brown, and the three began performing as the Triumvirate. In 1963, [[Jim Hendricks (musician)|James Hendricks]] replaced Brown, and the trio was renamed [[The Big 3 (folk group)|the Big 3]]. Elliot's first recording with the Big 3 was "Winken, Blinken, and Nod", released by [[FM Records]] in 1963. In 1964, the group appeared on an "open mic" night at [[The Bitter End]] in Greenwich Village, billed as Cass Elliot and the Big 3, followed onstage by folk singer Jim Fosso and [[Bluegrass music|bluegrass]] banjoist [[Eric Weissberg]].

Tim Rose left the Big 3 in 1964, and Elliot and Hendricks teamed with Canadians [[Zal Yanovsky]] and [[Denny Doherty]] to form [[The Mugwumps (band)|the Mugwumps]]. This group lasted eight months, after which Cass performed as a solo act for a while. In the meantime, Yanovsky and [[John Sebastian]] co-founded [[the Lovin' Spoonful]], while Doherty joined [[the New Journeymen]], a group that also included [[John Phillips (musician)|John Phillips]] and his wife [[Michelle Phillips|Michelle]]. In 1965, Doherty persuaded Phillips that Elliot should join the group, which she did while the group members and she were vacationing in the Virgin Islands.

A popular legend about Elliot is that her vocal range was improved by three notes after she was hit on the head by some copper tubing while walking through a construction site behind the bar where the New Journeymen were playing in the Virgin Islands. Elliot confirmed the story in a 1968 interview with ''Rolling Stone'', saying:

{{blockquote|1=It's true, I did get hit on the head by a pipe that fell down and my range was increased by three notes. They were tearing this club apart in the islands, revamping it, putting in a dance floor. Workmen dropped a thin metal plumbing pipe and it hit me on the head and knocked me to the ground. I had a concussion and went to the hospital. I had a bad headache for about two weeks and all of a sudden I was singing higher. It's true. Honest to God.<ref name="RollingStone_Interview">{{cite magazine|magazine=Rolling Stone|issue=20|date=1968-10-28 |format=Reprinted |last=Hopkins |first=Jerry |page=19|title=Interview: Cass Elliot |url=http://www.casselliot.com/rollingst.htm |location=San Francisco |publisher=Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. |access-date=27 May 2014 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140618122019/http://www.casselliot.com/rollingst.htm |archive-date=June 18, 2014}}</ref>}}

Friends later said that the pipe story was a less embarrassing explanation for why John Phillips had kept her out of the group for so long, because he considered her too fat.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/casspipe.asp|title=Mama Cass Hit on the Head with a Pipe |author=Mikkelson, David |website=Snopes|date=November 1, 2007}}</ref>