In 1969, Frank Zappa and The Mothers released Cruisin With Rueben and the Jets. It was a record that made life difficult for some of the regular listeners ans they tried to figure out why Frank had issued a collection of pretty good covers of greasy doo wop from the 50's and 60's. Most reviewers tried to explain it as parody. Through out Zappas music, in all genres, doo wop was one of the tools he used.
Rather than parody, it was a music he grew up with and it was lampooning something he loved. In his early career producing and working in bands, he was responsible for a number of 45's of fairly greasy doo wop. Groups like The Heartbreakers, featuring the earsplitting asthmatic falsetto of Ray Estrada and the Pauls were oddities, but aimed straight at the heart of early 60's grease culture.
In 1969, he heard The Persuasions, a New York City black doo wop group who had been singing together for years already. They were straight classic doo wop and used no instrumental back up. Frank offered to produce them and released their records on the Straight Label, which was a part of his newly formed Bizarre.....
I couldn't find the Persuasions from 1969. I had this idea while working up on a roof top today in the cold and got back and started to look...nothing is on video from that time but here is a video of the group from 1972 performing the Everly Brothers song, Dream.
The Persualsions have been performing since 1962. Since their recording debut in 1969, they have sang continuously and have recorded over 25 records. They appeared in Spike Lees documentary, "Do It Acapella" and have recorded an amazing variety of music adapted to their tight harmony acapella style. They have been performing Franks music for years and have recorded acapella tributes to U2, The Beatles and bizarrely enough, The Grateful Dead? Uh, okay....
Recently they released theior tribute to Frank, a cd's worth of Zappa covvers called "Frankly, a Capella".
3 comments:
The Persuasions. Havent heard that name in a long time.
"We Came to Play" and "We Still Ain't Got No Band." I saw them in Denver in the early 80's in a restaurant like place off of Colfax near old Mile High Stadium. There was nobody there but us. They sang "Coward of the County." It was way cool.
The Loop Garoo Kid
There used to be some YT's of them singing FZ stuff in a record store. I can't find them this year though.
I love their "Harder than your Husband"
from Frankly Acapella
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