Absolutley Free The Mothers of Invention



Absolutely Free (1967) is the second album by The Mothers of Invention, led by Frank Zappa. Absolutely Free is once again a display of complex musical composition with political and social satire. The band had been augmented since Freak Out! by the additions of saxophone player Bunk Gardner, keyboardist Don Preston, guitarist Jim Fielder and drummer Billy Mundi. However, Fielder quit the group before the album was released. His name was removed from the album credits.
For this album, the emphasis is on interconnected movements, as each side on the original vinyl LP composes a mini-suite. It also features one of the most famous songs of Zappa's early career, "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," a track which has been described as a "condensed two-hour musical".^[1]
The CD reissue adds a single The Mothers released at the time between where side one would have ended and side two would have begun featuring the songs "Why Dontcha Do Me Right?" (titled "Why Don't You Do Me Right" on the 45) and "Big Leg Emma," both described as: "an attempt to make dumb music to appeal to dumb teenagers" (these were a rare Verve single).
In the book Necessity Is..., former Mothers of Invention band member Ray Collins claimed that Absolutely Free is probably his favorite of the classic Mothers albums.^[2]
The UK -67 release (Verve VLP/SVLP 9174) came in a laminated flip-back cover, with a Mike Raven poem at the reverse that was not apparent on any other issue.
The title of "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" was inspired by an event covered by Time Magazine reporter Hugh Sidey in 1966. The reporter correctly guessed that something was up when the fastidiously dressed President Lyndon B. Johnson made the fashion faux pas of wearing brown shoes with a gray suit. LBJ flew to Vietnam for an unannounced public relations visit later that day.
In the songs "America Drinks and Goes Home" and "America Drinks" Zappa combines a silly tune with nightclub sound effects to parody his experiences playing with drunken bar bands during the early 1960s. Other songs recorded soon after that used the same kinds of ideas include "On with the Show" by The Rolling Stones (released in 1967), "My Friend" by Jimi Hendrix (recorded in 1968, released in 1971) and "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" by The Beatles (recorded in 1967 and 1969, released in 1970.)
"Plastic People" begins with a mock introduction of the President of the United States, who (along with his wife) can only recite the opening notes to "Louie, Louie". "Louie, Louie" is often interpolated in Zappa's compositions (other examples appear in the Uncle Meat and Yellow Shark albums, among others), and when Zappa first began performing "Plastic People" ca. 1965, the words were set to the tune of "Louie, Louie."

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