The Composer: End of the 60s

Zappa never stopped composing, no matter where he was. At home he’d lock himself in the basement and work all night and when he was on the road things weren’t that much different. He would sit in his hotel room or in an airport lounge and write music. His influences and inspirations seemed to change as often as his location and the end of the 60s saw an array of releases.

Lumpy Gravy was released in May of 1968 and was one of Zappa’s personal favorites. Perhaps not all that surprising since he had the opportunity to record with a full orchestra, use a 12-track and a state-of-the-art studio. To demonstrate how proud he was of the works on this album think that “Oh No” appeared on five others!

Cruising with Ruben and the Jets was released in December of 1968 and is an ode to ‘50s R&B and Doo Wop, which Zappa genuinely loved. “I like that kind of music, I’m very fond of close harmony group vocal [...] but the scientific side of Ruben & the Jets is that it was an experiment in cliché collages, because that music was just riddled with stereotyped motifs that made it sound the way it did. Not only did it give it its characteristic sound, but it gave it its emotional value,” commented Zappa on the style. As for The Mother's interpretation: “We scaled down the instrumentation of the group, and I tried to make it sound reasonably modern and also reasonably stereo ... we discussed different kinds of background chants and the emotional implications of them,” he explained [Miles p. 173]. This attention to every single detail, even what a particular chant may imply, truly showcases Zappa’s control freak attitude in all its glory.

Apart from his own work Zappa also lent a helping hand to friend Don Vliet with the production of a new album for his band; Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.

Trout Mask Replica is considered to be Zappa’s greatest independent production by many. Released in 1969 it features an untouched Don Vliet who always had a rhythm problem, and continued to have one on the album as Zappa chose not to tamper with the production in order to offer Vliet a ‘genuine’ product. When the band heard the finished album they dubbed it as the only album they ever made that actually sounded like the real band. All Zappa had to say was that “some of it’s pretty hard to listen to,” [p.183] and many agree that it’s one of the strangest albums ever made.