Frank Zappa – Cucamonga (04)

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1 Dear Jeepers
2 Memories of El Monte
3 How's Your Bird?
4 World's Greatest Sinner
5 Every Time I See You
6 Cradle Rock
7 Slow Bird
8 Blind Man's Buff
9 Tijuana Surf
10 Grunion Run
11 Mr. Clean
12 Jessie Lee
13 Cathy My Angel
14 'Til September
15 Heavies
16 The Cruncher
17 Letter from Jeepers

Before forming the Mothers of Invention, Zappa made numerous recordings at small studios. Several tracks that he had a hand in, as producer, instrumentalist, or writer, were issued on extremely rare singles in the early and mid-'60s.

This collects 14 such numbers that found their way to the L.A. Del-Fi label, including items by Paul Buff, the Rotations, the Pauls, Mr. Clean, the Heartbreakers, and Baby Ray & the Ferns, the last of which featured future Mother Ray Collins on vocals.

It's largely eccentric — but not that eccentric — doo wop and R&B with a humorous/novelty bent, though there's also a surf single by the Rotations.

You can hear the seeds of the production techniques of the Mothers albums occasionally, particularly on Bob Guy's weird horror rock ditties "Dear Jeepers" and "Letter from Jeepers"; a snippet of the Rotations' "Heavies" even showed up on the Mothers' We're Only in It for the Money.

Yet this stuff wasn't outrageously funny enough to be novelty hits, or original or hooky enough to be straight pop or R&B successes.

Put another way, in hindsight they show elements of Zappa's later work, but at the time no one could have guessed that he would develop into a major force in experimental rock.

About half of this has shown up on reissues before, but the rest can't be found elsewhere on CD, so it's useful to Zappa collectors.

The 2004 Rhino expanded edition also collects more of his pre-Mothers releases, including the Penguins' "Memories of El Monte" (which he co-wrote with Ray Collins), the Hollywood Persuaders' "Tijuana Surf".