200 Motels (soundtrack)
Encyclopedia
The soundtrack to Frank Zappa
's film 200 Motels
was released by United Artists Records
in 1971 and features a combination of rock
and jazz
songs, orchestra
l music and comedic
spoken dialogue
. The album, like the film
, covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention
going crazy in the small town Centerville, and bassist Jeff quitting the group, as did his real life counterpart, Jeff Simmons
, who left the group before the film began shooting and was replaced by actor Martin Lickert for the film.
The album peaked at #59 on the Billboard 200
, though reviewers deemed it a peripheral part of Zappa's catalog.
and comedy
songs "Mystery Roach", "Lonesome Cowboy Burt", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", "What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning" and "Magic Fingers", and the finale "Strictly Genteel", which mixes orchestra
l and rock elements, were noted as highlights of the album by reviewer Richie Unterberger. François Couture said that "Mystery Roach" contains multiple meanings, all of which have a connection to lyrical subject matter in Zappa's discography. These include the freshwater fish, as the Mothers of Invention live album Fillmore East - June 1971
contained a song referring to the mud shark, a cannabis
cigarette butt, which causes the character Jeff to go crazy within the context of the film's storyline, and a combed roll hairstyle, which connects the song lyrically to "Jelly Roll Gumdrop", a song from Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
. The version featured on the album is different from the version featured in the film, as it is missing small electric guitar
solos by Zappa, and was not scripted as part of the film in its electric arrangement, having originally been written in three separate, unused acoustic
blues
-oriented arrangements. The song was not performed live.
"Dance of the Rock & Roll Interviewers" is an orchestral piece originally intended to be paired with "Touring Can Make You Crazy" as part of an early scene in which the band arrives in Centerville and is greeted by music journalists, but only part of the sequence, depicting a mannequin of Zappa being torn apart by the journalists, appeared in the final film, due to timing and budget restraints, and the "Touring Can Make You Crazy" sequence was not shot and does not appear in the film. Regarding "Touring", Couture writes that "The long double-bass notes and the overall dark atmosphere and slow tempo suggest a tiring trip."
The album features five segments which form the suite "This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich": a prologue, the "Tuna Fish Promenade", "Dance of the Just Plain Folks", a reprise of the main melody, and the conclusion "The Sealed Tuna Bolero". Only the final bolero was featured in the film. The "Tuna Sandwich" suite was scripted as being proceeded by the sequence and composition "Centerville". "Would You Like A Snack?" is a vocal version of Zappa's composition "Holiday in Berlin", which reappears throughout the album and film in different arrangements, including the "Semi-Fraudulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture". The lyrics of "Would You Like A Snack?" are similar to the theater piece on Zappa's live album Ahead of Their Time
. Zappa earlier recorded an unrelated song of the same name, which features members of the Mothers of Invention and Jefferson Airplane
singer Grace Slick
.
"Redneck Eats" begins and ends with spoken dialogue featuring the character Lonesome Cowboy Burt (played by Jimmy Carl Black
) heckling the orchestra, which is performing a Igor Stravinsky
and Edgard Varese
-influenced composition. "Janet's Big Dance Number" is about one of the film's two groupie
characters and features "Slow piano chords [...] played over sustained contrabass notes. The choir enters late in the piece, picking up the Stravinskian melody sketched by the chords." "Lucy's Seduction of a Bored Violinist", follows the other groupie character, and features "a soft melody, followed by a rhythm break and a tympany roll" and a faster reprise of the "Janet" melody. The album pairs "Lucy" with the film's "Postlude", which appears during the ending credits, and is played on a harpsichord.
The second half of the album begins with the suite "Dental Hygiene Dilemma", which begins with "I'm Stealing The Towels", for which the corresponding film sequence was scripted and partially shot, before it was determined that the footage was unusable, and the sequence was cut. The main part of the suite, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma", appeared in the film as an animated cartoon by Charles Swenson, who later directed the film Down and Dirty Duck with Mothers of Invention bandmembers and 200 Motels stars Mark Volman
and Howard Kaylan
.
The main part of the suite, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" incorporates elements of rock band, orchestra and spoken dialogue, and depicts Jeff smoking a marijuana cigarette which had been dipped in Don Preston
's "foamy liquids" and imagining Donovan
appearing to him on a wall-mounted television as his "good conscience" and asking him not to steal the towels, while Studebacher Hoch
appears to him as his evil conscience, "dressed as Jim Pons
", and convinces Jeff to quit the Mothers of Invention, start his own hard rock
band and play music like Grand Funk Railroad
or Black Sabbath
. In real life, Simmons started his own blues rock band after leaving Zappa's band, and released the album Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
for Straight Records
, which Zappa produced. In "Dilemma", Volman exclaims "We got to get him back to normal before Zappa finds out and steals it and makes him do it in the movie!"
"A Nun Suit Painted on Some Old Boxes" is the first part of a suite for soprano voice, chorus, and orchestra called "I Have Seen the Pleated Gazelle". The suite criticizes organized religion and references dental floss, connecting the suite to Zappa's later song "Montana", appearing on the album Over-Nite Sensation
. In the film, "A Nun Suit" proceeds the "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" cartoon, but is placed before the rock song "Magic Fingers" on this album, removing the context of the line "Want to watch a dental hygiene movie?" The "Gazelle" suite continues with "Motorhead's Midnight Ranch", "Dew on the Newts We Got" and "The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts", for which the corresponding film sequence was only partially shot.
. The album was not released on compact disc
until 1997, in correspondence with a theatrical reissue of the film. The CD edition contained extensive liner notes and artwork as well as a small poster for the film, and bonus tracks consisting of radio promos for the film and the single edit of the song "Magic Fingers".
The album was deemed to be a peripheral album in Zappa's catalog by music critics. Allmusic's Richie Unterberger critiqued what he referred to as the "growing tendency to deploy the smutty, cheap humor that would soon dominate much of Zappa's work", but said that "Those who like his late-'60s/early-'70s work [...] will probably like this fine". Italian critic Piero Scaruffi
described the album as "ambitious and monumental", and described it as a standout from other albums Zappa released during this period, which Scaruffi deemed to be juvenile and uncreative.
(North America)
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
's film 200 Motels
200 Motels
200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. The film covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention going crazy in the small town Centerville...
was released by United Artists Records
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...
in 1971 and features a combination of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
songs, orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l music and comedic
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
spoken dialogue
Spoken word album
A spoken word album was a record album that did not consist mainly of music or songs, but of spoken material. It could be said to be the ancestor of today's audiobook format...
. The album, like the film
200 Motels
200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. The film covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention going crazy in the small town Centerville...
, covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
going crazy in the small town Centerville, and bassist Jeff quitting the group, as did his real life counterpart, Jeff Simmons
Jeff Simmons (musician)
Jeff Simmons, born May 1949 in Seattle, Washington, is a rock musician and former member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Simmons provided bass, guitar, and backing vocals for the group between 1970 and 1971. He left The Mothers just prior to the filming of 200 Motels in mid 1971...
, who left the group before the film began shooting and was replaced by actor Martin Lickert for the film.
The album peaked at #59 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, though reviewers deemed it a peripheral part of Zappa's catalog.
Music and lyrics
The rockRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
songs "Mystery Roach", "Lonesome Cowboy Burt", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", "What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning" and "Magic Fingers", and the finale "Strictly Genteel", which mixes orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l and rock elements, were noted as highlights of the album by reviewer Richie Unterberger. François Couture said that "Mystery Roach" contains multiple meanings, all of which have a connection to lyrical subject matter in Zappa's discography. These include the freshwater fish, as the Mothers of Invention live album Fillmore East - June 1971
Fillmore East - June 1971
Fillmore East – June 1971 is a live album by The Mothers, released in 1971. It was the twelfth album by Frank Zappa. It was produced by Frank Zappa, and mixed by Toby Foster.-History:This was a live concept-like album...
contained a song referring to the mud shark, a cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
cigarette butt, which causes the character Jeff to go crazy within the context of the film's storyline, and a combed roll hairstyle, which connects the song lyrically to "Jelly Roll Gumdrop", a song from Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
Cruising With Ruben & The Jets is an album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, released in December 1968, and controversially reissued in an alternate mix with newly recorded bass and percussion in 1984.-Concept:...
. The version featured on the album is different from the version featured in the film, as it is missing small electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
solos by Zappa, and was not scripted as part of the film in its electric arrangement, having originally been written in three separate, unused acoustic
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
-oriented arrangements. The song was not performed live.
"Dance of the Rock & Roll Interviewers" is an orchestral piece originally intended to be paired with "Touring Can Make You Crazy" as part of an early scene in which the band arrives in Centerville and is greeted by music journalists, but only part of the sequence, depicting a mannequin of Zappa being torn apart by the journalists, appeared in the final film, due to timing and budget restraints, and the "Touring Can Make You Crazy" sequence was not shot and does not appear in the film. Regarding "Touring", Couture writes that "The long double-bass notes and the overall dark atmosphere and slow tempo suggest a tiring trip."
The album features five segments which form the suite "This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich": a prologue, the "Tuna Fish Promenade", "Dance of the Just Plain Folks", a reprise of the main melody, and the conclusion "The Sealed Tuna Bolero". Only the final bolero was featured in the film. The "Tuna Sandwich" suite was scripted as being proceeded by the sequence and composition "Centerville". "Would You Like A Snack?" is a vocal version of Zappa's composition "Holiday in Berlin", which reappears throughout the album and film in different arrangements, including the "Semi-Fraudulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture". The lyrics of "Would You Like A Snack?" are similar to the theater piece on Zappa's live album Ahead of Their Time
Ahead of Their Time
Ahead of Their Time is a live album by The Mothers of Invention. It was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England on October 25, 1968 , and released in 1993 on CD by Barking Pumpkin...
. Zappa earlier recorded an unrelated song of the same name, which features members of the Mothers of Invention and Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
singer Grace Slick
Grace Slick
Grace Slick is an American singer and songwriter, who was one of the lead singers of the rock groups The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, and was a solo artist, for nearly three decades, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s...
.
"Redneck Eats" begins and ends with spoken dialogue featuring the character Lonesome Cowboy Burt (played by Jimmy Carl Black
Jimmy Carl Black
Jimmy Carl Black , born James Inkanish, Jr., was a drummer and vocalist for The Mothers of Invention.-Career: 1960s-1990s:Born in El Paso, Texas, Black was of Cheyenne heritage...
) heckling the orchestra, which is performing a Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Edgard Varese
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
-influenced composition. "Janet's Big Dance Number" is about one of the film's two groupie
Groupie
A groupie is a person who seeks emotional and sexual intimacy with a musician or other celebrity. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but the word is also used in a more general sense, especially in casual conversation....
characters and features "Slow piano chords [...] played over sustained contrabass notes. The choir enters late in the piece, picking up the Stravinskian melody sketched by the chords." "Lucy's Seduction of a Bored Violinist", follows the other groupie character, and features "a soft melody, followed by a rhythm break and a tympany roll" and a faster reprise of the "Janet" melody. The album pairs "Lucy" with the film's "Postlude", which appears during the ending credits, and is played on a harpsichord.
The second half of the album begins with the suite "Dental Hygiene Dilemma", which begins with "I'm Stealing The Towels", for which the corresponding film sequence was scripted and partially shot, before it was determined that the footage was unusable, and the sequence was cut. The main part of the suite, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma", appeared in the film as an animated cartoon by Charles Swenson, who later directed the film Down and Dirty Duck with Mothers of Invention bandmembers and 200 Motels stars Mark Volman
Mark Volman
Mark Volman is an American rock and roll singer, best known as a founding member of the 1960s band The Turtles. At times during his career he has used the pseudonym "The Phlorescent Leech"...
and Howard Kaylan
Howard Kaylan
Howard Kaylan is an American rock and roll musician, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band, The Turtles, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie.-Early days:...
.
The main part of the suite, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" incorporates elements of rock band, orchestra and spoken dialogue, and depicts Jeff smoking a marijuana cigarette which had been dipped in Don Preston
Don Preston
Donald Ward Preston also known as Dom DeWilde or Biff Debrie born September 21, 1932 in Flint, Michigan. Preston is an American jazz and rock and roll musician.-Biography:Preston was born into a family of musicians and began studying music at an early age...
's "foamy liquids" and imagining Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
appearing to him on a wall-mounted television as his "good conscience" and asking him not to steal the towels, while Studebacher Hoch
Billy the Mountain
"Billy the Mountain" is a Frank Zappa song first made available on the album Just Another Band from L.A. in 1972. The original recording of this song, which took more than a half-hour to perform, was from a live tour performance on August 7, 1971 in Los Angeles, performed by Zappa with his band The...
appears to him as his evil conscience, "dressed as Jim Pons
Jim Pons
Jim Pons was a bass guitarist and singer for several 1960s rock bands, including The Leaves, The Turtles, and The Mothers of Invention....
", and convinces Jeff to quit the Mothers of Invention, start his own hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band and play music like Grand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad is an American rock band that was highly popular during the 1970s. Grand Funk Railroad toured constantly to packed arenas worldwide. A popular take on the band during its heyday was that, although the critics hated them, audiences loved them...
or Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
. In real life, Simmons started his own blues rock band after leaving Zappa's band, and released the album Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up is a 1970 album by Jeff Simmons, produced by Frank Zappa under the pseudonym La Marr Bruister. DescriptionIts title track was later rerecorded as part of Zappa's 1979 album, Joe's Garage...
for Straight Records
Straight Records
Straight Records was a record label formed in 1969 to distribute productions and discoveries of Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen. Straight was formed at the same time as a companion label, Bizarre Records. Straight and Bizarre were manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by...
, which Zappa produced. In "Dilemma", Volman exclaims "We got to get him back to normal before Zappa finds out and steals it and makes him do it in the movie!"
"A Nun Suit Painted on Some Old Boxes" is the first part of a suite for soprano voice, chorus, and orchestra called "I Have Seen the Pleated Gazelle". The suite criticizes organized religion and references dental floss, connecting the suite to Zappa's later song "Montana", appearing on the album Over-Nite Sensation
Over-Nite Sensation
Over-Nite Sensation is an album by Frank Zappa & The Mothers, released in 1973 . It was recorded in March – June 1973 at these studios: Bolic Sound in Inglewood, Whitney, in Glendale, and Paramount in Los Angeles...
. In the film, "A Nun Suit" proceeds the "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" cartoon, but is placed before the rock song "Magic Fingers" on this album, removing the context of the line "Want to watch a dental hygiene movie?" The "Gazelle" suite continues with "Motorhead's Midnight Ranch", "Dew on the Newts We Got" and "The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts", for which the corresponding film sequence was only partially shot.
Release and reception
200 Motels charted at #59 on the Billboard 200Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. The album was not released on compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
until 1997, in correspondence with a theatrical reissue of the film. The CD edition contained extensive liner notes and artwork as well as a small poster for the film, and bonus tracks consisting of radio promos for the film and the single edit of the song "Magic Fingers".
The album was deemed to be a peripheral album in Zappa's catalog by music critics. Allmusic's Richie Unterberger critiqued what he referred to as the "growing tendency to deploy the smutty, cheap humor that would soon dominate much of Zappa's work", but said that "Those who like his late-'60s/early-'70s work [...] will probably like this fine". Italian critic Piero Scaruffi
Piero Scaruffi
Piero Scaruffi received a degree in Mathematics in 1982 from University of Turin, where he did work on the General Theory of Relativity. For a number of years he was the head of the Artificial Intelligence Center at Olivetti, based in Cupertino, California. He has been a visiting scholar at...
described the album as "ambitious and monumental", and described it as a standout from other albums Zappa released during this period, which Scaruffi deemed to be juvenile and uncreative.
Side one
Side two
Side three
Side four
200 Motels promotional radio spots
Personnel
- Bob Auger – Engineer
- Theodore BikelTheodore BikelTheodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....
– Narrator - Jimmy Carl BlackJimmy Carl BlackJimmy Carl Black , born James Inkanish, Jr., was a drummer and vocalist for The Mothers of Invention.-Career: 1960s-1990s:Born in El Paso, Texas, Black was of Cheyenne heritage...
– Vocals - George DukeGeorge DukeGeorge Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...
– Trombone, Keyboards - Aynsley DunbarAynsley DunbarAynsley Thomas Dunbar is an English drummer. He has worked with some of the top names in rock, including Eric Burdon, John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, Jefferson Starship, Jeff Beck, David Bowie, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar, UFO, and Journey...
– Drums - Howard KaylanHoward KaylanHoward Kaylan is an American rock and roll musician, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band, The Turtles, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie.-Early days:...
– Vocals - Barry Keene – Overdubs, Remixing
- Martin Lickert – Bass (Basic tracks recorded at Pinewood only during filming – many of which were redubbed by Zappa)
- David McMacken – Design, Illustrations
- Patrick Pending – Liner Notes
- Jim PonsJim PonsJim Pons was a bass guitarist and singer for several 1960s rock bands, including The Leaves, The Turtles, and The Mothers of Invention....
– Voices - Royal Philharmonic OrchestraRoyal Philharmonic OrchestraThe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
- Cal SchenkelCal SchenkelCal Schenkel is an artist specialising in album cover design. He was the main visual collaborator for Frank Zappa and was responsible for the art and graphic design of many of Zappa's most well-known album covers. Schenkel's work is iconic and distinctive in style; a forerunner of punk art and...
– Design - Ian UnderwoodIan UnderwoodIan Robertson Underwood is a woodwind and keyboards player. He began his career by playing San Francisco Bay Area coffeehouses and bars with his improvisational group the Jazz Mice in the mid 1960s before he became a member of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in 1967 for their third studio...
– Keyboards, Woodwind - Ruth UnderwoodRuth UnderwoodRuth Underwood is a retired professional musician, best known for playing xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and other percussion instruments in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention from 1967 to 1977....
– Percussion - Mark VolmanMark VolmanMark Volman is an American rock and roll singer, best known as a founding member of the 1960s band The Turtles. At times during his career he has used the pseudonym "The Phlorescent Leech"...
– Vocals, Photography - Frank ZappaFrank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
– Bass, Guitar, Producer, Orchestration
Charts
Album – BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
(North America)
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Pop Albums | 59 |