The Mothers Of Invention
This celebrated group was formed in 1965 when guitarist Frank Zappa (b. 21 December 1940, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, d. 4 December 1993, Los Angeles, California, USA) replaced Ray Hunt in the Soul Giants, a struggling R&B-based bar band. Ray Collins (vocals), Dave Coronado (saxophone), Roy Estrada (bass) and Jimmy Carl Black (drums) completed their early line-up, but Coronado abandoned the group when the newcomer unveiled his musical strategy. Now renamed the Mothers, the quartet was relocated from Orange County to Los Angeles where they were briefly augmented by several individuals, including Alice Stuart, James Guercio and Henry Vestine, later guitarist in Canned Heat. These temporary additions found Zappa's vision daunting as the Mothers embarked on a disarming melange of '50s pop, Chicago R&B and avant garde music. They were embraced by the city's nascent Underground before an appearance at the famed Whiskey A Go-Go resulted in a recording deal when producer Tom Wilson caught the end of one of their sets. 
Now dubbed the Mothers Of Invention, owing to pressure from the record company, the group added guitarist Elliott Ingber (Winged Eel Fingerling) before commencing FREAK OUT!, rock music's first double album. This revolutionary set featured several exceptional pieces including Trouble Every Day, Hungry Freaks, Daddy and The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet, each of which showed different facets of Zappa's evolving tableau. The Mothers second album, ABSOLUTELY FREE, featured a radically reshaped line-up. Ingber was fired at the end of 1966 while Zappa added a second drummer, Billy Mundi, plus Don Preston (keyboards), Bunk Gardner (horns) and Jim ‘Motorhead’ Sherwood (saxophone) to the original group nucleus. A six-month residency at New York's Garrick Theater combined spirited interplay with excellent material and the set showed growing confidence. Satire flourished on Plastic People, America Drinks & Goes Home and Brown Shoes Don't Make It, much of which was inspired by the ‘cocktail-bar’ drudgery the group suffered in its earliest incarnation. However, Zappa's ire was more fully flexed on WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, which featured several barbed attacks on the trappings of ‘flower-power’. Housed in a sleeve which cleverly mocked the Beatles’ SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, the set included The Idiot Bastard Son (‘The father's a Nazi in Congress today, the mother's a hooker somewhere in LA’) and Who Needs The Peace Corps (‘I'll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home’) and indicated Zappa's growing fascination with technology. The album also introduced new member Ian Underwood (saxophone/keyboards), who became an integral part of the group's future work. CRUISING WITH RUBEN & THE JETS was, to quote the liner notes; ‘an album of greasy love songs and cretin simplicity’. Despite such cynicism, the group displayed an obvious affection for the '50s doo-wop material on offer, all of which was self-penned and included re-recordings of three songs, How Could I Be Such A Fool, Any Way The Wind Blows and You Didn't Try To Call Me, first aired on FREAK OUT. However, the album was the last wholly new set committed by the ‘original’ line-up. Later releases, UNCLE MEAT (a soundtrack to the then unmade film), BURNT WEENY SANDWICH and WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH, were all compiled from existing live and studio tapes as tension within the group pulled it apart. The musicians enjoyed mixed fortunes; Estrada joined newcomer Lowell George in Little Feat, third drummer Arthur Dyre Tripp III switched allegiance to Captain Beefheart, while Jimmy Carl Black formed Geronimo Black with brothers Buzz and Bunk Gardner. 
A new Mothers was formed in 1970 from the musicians contributing to Zappa's third solo album, CHUNGA'S REVENGE, and the scatalogical ‘on the road’ documentary, 200 Motels. Three former Turtles, Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan (both vocals) and Jim Pons (bass) joined Aynsley Dunbar (drums) and longstanding affiliates Ian Underwood and Don Preston in the group responsible for FILLMORE EAST, JUNE 1971. Here, however, the early pot-pourri of Stravinsky, John Coltrane, doo-wop and Louie Louie gave way to condescending innuendo as Zappa threatened to become the person once the subject of his ire. Paradoxically, it became the group's best-selling album to date, setting the tone for future releases and reinforcing the guitarist's jaundiced view of his audience. This period was brought to a sudden end at London's Rainbow Theatre. A ‘jealous’ member of the audience attacked the hapless Zappa onstage, pushing him into the orchestra pit where he sustained multiple back injuries and a compound leg fracture. His slow recuperation was undermined when the entire new Mothers, bar Underwood, quit en masse to form what became known as Flo & Eddie. Confined to the studio, Zappa compiled JUST ANOTHER BAND FROM L.A. and used the Mothers epithet for the jazz big band on THE GRAND WAZOO. Reverting to rock music, the Mothers’ name was re-established with a new, tighter line-up in 1973. However subsequent albums, OVER-NITE SENSATION, ROXY & ELSEWHERE and ONE SIZE FITS ALL, are indistinguishable from projects bearing Zappa's name and this now superfluous title was abandoned in 1975, following the release BONGO FURY, a collaboration with Captain Beefheart. Zappa's career has progressed to such a high-level that his entire catalogue has been remastered and re-issued with the advent of the compact disc. The quality of those early Mothers Of Invention recordings are by today's standards quite outstanding.