In the 1960s, Laurel Canyon – a mountainous region of Los Angeles – became known as an artist enclave, home to many musicians and other creatives. Among those musicians closely associated with Laurel Canyon was Frank Zappa, who resided in the area from the mid-1960s through his death in 1993.
One of the early Laurel Canyon residents who became integral in championing its local music scene was radio disc jockey Art Laboe, who died on October 7, 2022 at age 97. Laboe moved to Laurel Canyon in 1958 while hosting his influential live radio program from Scrivner’s Drive-In located in Hollywood. The show often featured songs that had come out several years earlier, leading Laboe to call them “Oldies but goodies.”
Laboe’s radio program became so popular that in 1955 it had to move from the drive-in to El Monte Legion Stadium, with thousands of youngsters coming to listen to the records he played. The cross-culturally popular dances at El Monte continued for six years.
In 1959, Laboe packed many of those older songs into a compilation album he titled Oldies But Goodies Vol. 1, which was released on his Original Sound Records label. He went to issue 15 Oldies But Goodies volumes. Another earlier oldies compilation Laboe curated was called Memories Of El Monte and included many of the acts featured at Legion Stadium.
Zappa heard that compilation and was inspired by its title, going so far as to use it for the title of a new song filled with nostalgia for the golden oldies championed by Laboe. “Memories Of El Monte” was co-written by Zappa and his future Mothers Of Invention bandmate Ray Collins, who himself had attended and performed at Laboe’s dances at Legion Stadium.
The pair based the song’s melody on “Earth Angel,” the 1954 doo-wop classic recorded by The Penguins, which appeared on Laboe’s early compilations. The lyrics to “Memories Of El Monte” name-checked many of the acts that were showcased at Laboe’s dances at Legion Stadium:
The Satins were singing ‘In The Still of the Night’
The Shields would sing ‘You cheated. You lied.’
And the Heartbeats ‘You’re a thousand miles away’
And the Medallions with ‘The Letter’ and ‘Sweet words of mortality’
Marvin and Johnny with ‘Cherry Pie’
And then, Tony Allen with ‘Night Owl’
The Penguins, who by the time “Memories Of El Monte” was written retained only Cleve Duncan from the lineup that recorded “Earth Angel,” were tapped to record “Memories Of El Monte.” Tenor vocalist Walter Saulsberry and the singing group The Viceroys backed Duncan, who ended the song by singing:
And I, Cleve Duncan
Along with The Penguins
Will sing ‘Earth angel, earth angel, will you be mine?”
At El Monte
In the book Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon, author Harvey Kubernik asked Laboe about his working relationship with Frank Zappa, with Laboe stating:
“A guy named Paul Buff and Frank Zappa were friends from Cucamonga, and Paul was a really smart engineer, and he and Zappa were best friends. So Paul initially came over to see me with some surfing stuff in the early ’60s. “Paul told me his friend Frank Zappa wanted to meet me. ‘He’s a real hip guy.’ I’ll meet him.’ Frank came over and looked at my studio. This was way before he was popular.
“He said, ‘Hey, you know what? Can I store my xylophone in here? “Well, I guess so. It will be all right.’ He was a completely unknown guy. I did say, ‘If I produce a record and want a xylophone on it, you just play on it and that will be your rent.’ Cool man. Great.’
“Sure enough, when I produced ‘Memories of El Monte,’ which he wrote, that’s Frank playing the xylophone on it. Right after that he expanded into his thing. I’d run into him once in a while. Sometimes he’d come and visit and he wrote some songs that we published including `Mr. Clean’ I think.”
Zappa recalled the period around when “Memories Of El Monte” was composed in the 1974 book In Their Own Words.
“I didn’t start writing songs per se until I was about 20 years old, 21 maybe, because all my compositions prior to that time had been orchestral or chamber music. I think the basic idea of being a composer is if you’re going to be true to yourself and write what you like, you write what you like without worrying whether it’s going to be academically suitable or whether it’s going to make any mark in history or not. My basic drive for writing anything down is I want to hear it.
“The very first tunes that I wrote were ‘50s doo-wop. ‘Memories Of El Monte’ and stuff like that. It’s always been my contention that the music that was happening during the ‘50s has been one of the finest things that ever happened to American music and I loved it. I could sit down and write a hundred more of the nineteen-fifties-type songs right now and enjoy every minute of it. I think my writing is as influenced, however, by country blues as it is by 1950s stuff. I’ve always been fond of Muddy Waters, Lightning Slim, Howling Wolf, and those guys.
“At the time I was living in a part of town called Echo Park [Los Angeles] which was a Mexican, Japanese, Filipino, Black neighborhood and I lived in a little two-room place, grubby little place on the side of a hill, 1819 Bellevue Avenue. In that house I wrote ‘[Who Are The] Brain Police,’ ‘Oh No, I Don’t Believe It,’ ‘Hungry Freaks,’ ‘Bowtie Daddy,’ and five or six others. A lot of the songs off the first album [Freak Out] had already been written for two or three years before the album came out. And a lot of songs wouldn’t come out until the third or fourth album.”
Zappa and Collins would go on to release Freak Out, the Mothers Of Invention’s debut album, in 1966 — the same year Zappa permanently relocated to Laurel Canyon. The record was mostly made up of songs written by Zappa, alongside the Zappa/Collins co-write “Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder.”
Stream The Penguin’s recording of “Memories Of El Monte,” with Zappa on xylophone, below:
