Jeff Simmons
Jeff Simmons's rock career is really only a footnote to the Frank Zappa story, but he did manage to release one highly-regarded album. In 1969, Zappa had set up the Straight label in order to ‘present musical and sociological material which the important record companies would probably not allow you to hear’. In among Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fischer, Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce and the GTO's, Jeff Simmons looked like the straight guy: what was remarkable was how good the album was. LUCILLE HAS MESSED MY MIND UP of 1970 was psychedelic R&B, a combination of tightly crafted Cream-like songs and Simmons's plaintive, jazzy vocals. Zappa wrote the title song, a kind of '50s doo-wop number (reprised by Zappa on JOE'S GARAGE ten years later) and played guitar on two numbers. Wonderful Wino also got an airing (later to reappear on ZOOT ALLURES ( 1976 in 1976). Production was by Zappa under the name La Marr Bruister. Simmons played bass and sang backing on Zappa's CHUNGA'S REVENGE, but left under a cloud. Though he is thanked on the cover of 200 MOTELS, his pretensions to superstardom are guyed in the movie. He recorded the soundtrack to the film NAKED ANGELS—fuzz guitar instrumentals—and then vanished from sight.