Jeff Simmons

Album: The Straight Years (US 1969)
2-CD set / Cat. No. WIS-1035-36
CD 1: Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
CD 2: Original Soundtrack from Naked Angels

Album: Original Soundtrack from Naked Angels (US 1969)
LP / Cat. No. WIS-007 (+ poster)

Album: Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up (US 1969)
LP / Cat. No. WIS-009 (+ insert)

These 2 albums present the Straight label years of Zappa´s multi-talented “sideman”, Jeff Simmons. In 1968 in Seattle Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa was in the audience after his sound check, and was listening to “Easy Chair”, Jeff´s group. Fascinated by his talent, he was signed for Straight records. Both albums, Lucille and Naked Angels were recorded in 1969.

CD 1 / LP (WIS-009) : Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up: Contains 10 heavy Blues-Rock and Folk tunes (CD includes 2 bonustracks). Jeff is "playing a hard-driven and groovy bass, piano, organ and accordion and singing in a style similar to that of Jack Bruce with Cream. Simmons presented a brace of strong, harmonically sophisticated songs that have some of the explosive, multi-hued impact of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The album was produced by Chris Huston (Led Zeppelin II, Undertakers, Young Rascals) and Frank Zappa under the synonym “La Marr Bruister”, who wrote the title track, played lead guitar on two tracks and co-wrote "Wonderful Wino”. Contains lots of memorabilia from Jeff´s vaults (posters, cool photos, linernotes.

Lucille was rated in Mojo Magazine as the 2nd best release on Straight Records. Strange Things Art Magazine mentions it as “the closest in execution to contemporary Mothers”, but Jeff´s individual talent made this album to an all time masterpiece. Never has a musician in psychedelic Rock´n´Roll captured the essence of deep emotion and soul like the “sideman”!

CD 2 / LP (WIS-007): Naked Angels is a soundtrack for a biker movie is a sequence of mostly instrumentals that combine melody and fuzz guitar; heavy, psychedelicate surf-rock.

The music was carefully re-mastered to sound today as fresh as it was 40 years ago.

Ben Watson, excerpted from Frank Zappa: “The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play”... "No one knows it... not even him... but someday that kid's gonna be a great R&B singer" (Frank Zappa). Jeff was in the Mothers of Invention at the time of 200 Motels, Jeff also played rhythm guitar on Waka/Jawaka and clown about with Frank and George Duke on Roxy & Elsewhere.