Mama's Big Ones

Inaugurated in the spring of 1968, Elliot's solo tenure with Dunhill Records was contentious, the label insisting the onetime-member of the Mamas & Papas be billed as "Mama Cass", and that she record in the soft rock vein which had afforded the Mamas & Papas' success.^[1][2][3] She would claim in 1971 that, at Dunhill, she had been "forced to be so bubble gum that I'd stick to the floor when I walked."^[4] Elliot's solo singles were progressively less successful, Dunhill president Jay Lasker commenting after her sixth solo single stalled at #42 in early 1970: "'New World Coming' has gotten great airplay because it came along and expressed hope in the midst of despair. Unfortunately, it isn't selling all that well, so we're going back to an old theme. The message here – at least to us – is that 'the message record has had it'. [Now] Mama Cass is going to do love songs."^[5]

In July 1970, it was announced that Elliot would depart Dunhill for RCA Records, the compilation Mama's Big Ones being issued that October as the final album she owed to Dunhill.^[1] It featured eight of Elliot's nine Dunhill single releases, omitting 1968's "California Earthquake" and adding The Mamas & the Papas' hit "Words of Love", which featured Elliot as lead vocalist. Mama's Big Ones provided the album debut for the tracks "New World Coming", "A Song That Never Comes", "The Good Times Are Coming", "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By", "One Way Ticket", and "Ain't Nobody Else Like You", all of which had been, or would be, single releases in the U.S. or U.K. (the last-named being the UK B-side of Elliot's version of "Easy Come, Easy Go").

The album was released in October 1970^[6][7] and peaked at #194 on the Billboard 200.^[8] It was reissued by MCA in both 1980 and—on CD—1987.