The awkward moment Frank Zappa met Brian Jones
As time passed, it seemed like The Rolling Stones didn’t know what they had on their hands with Brian Jones. Outside of being one of the group’s main leaders, Jones’ inherent knack for picking up any instrument and being able to play it was unmatched by his contemporaries, always finding the right instrumental flourish for any song he played with The Stones. Once the band started seeing greater success, Jones’s morale also started to go downhill.
While the beginning of the ‘60s started with some of the most electric blues playing out of the English club scene on songs like ‘Satisfaction’, something different happened once Mick Jagger and Keith Richards started to write their material. As a child of the blues, Jones felt himself being creatively stifled by the group, having all the energy and no place to utilise it in their tunes.
There were occasional moments where Jones could shine, breaking out the sitar for the song ‘Paint it Black’ and letting his creativity run free on the album Between the Buttons. No longer confined to the usual blues structures, the band’s sudden shift into chamber pop and posh arrangements gave Jones free rein, albeit with songs where he was often forced to limit his abilities yet again. Despite having a greater showcase for his abilities, the album has gone down as one of the more disappointing releases in the eyes of the band.
As Jones started to wane, a fellow eclectic musician named Frank Zappa was making the rounds in the music scene, bringing with him some of the wildest music possible on albums like Freak Out! And Hot Rats. While Zappa always had a certain amount of disdain for the superficial sides of rock and roll, he often talked about how much he loved The Stones’ material, including Between the Buttons among some of his favourite albums.
By the time Zappa could tell Jones how he felt about the record, the guitarist wasn’t necessarily willing to listen, as Zappa recalls in Let It Rock: “I remember seeing Brian Jones very drunk in the Speakeasy one night and telling him I liked it and thought it superior to Sergeant Pepper … whereupon he belched discreetly and turned around”.
Then again, Jones could have easily seen Zappa as someone making the creative choices he wished he could make. Instead of being confined to what another songwriting team says, Zappa followed his muse no matter the cost, which often led to some of the more creative avenues in rock music. Since Jones remained with The Stones, he would continue to feel creatively harnessed, even featuring on the Beatles song ‘You Know My Name Look Up The Number’ as a chance to get some of his creativity out.
Once Jones returned, his creative spirit began to run dry, appearing like a shell of himself throughout his final albums with the band before being discovered at the bottom of his swimming pool shortly after leaving the group. For all of the industry bullshit that got in the way of Jones making the music he wanted, there’s a good chance he could have had some fun if he had worked with Zappa a little later.
