As a footnote, I appreciated the shout out to the Mothers of Invention in Brian's talk.

I'm sure I encountered that Mothers album before I encountered Lloyd's album, but not long before. At the same time as idolizing Zappa during college, I was starting to re-discover sea songs from my Connecticut childhood, the favorite being one of the Library of Congress's albums of field recordings. Which led me simultaneously to be engaged in performing (and composing) art music inspired by Zappa and doing little informal folkie groups singing chanties based on those recordings. A fellow Zappa-loving friend and I always remember the liner notes' acknowledgement of _Blow Boys Blow_. Lloyd's "Handsome Cabin Boy" was in my repertoire at parties.

In the same notes, Zappa also acknowledges his first composition teacher, Prof. Karl Kohn. I did not know I would end up at Pomona College, where Zappa took lessons from Kohn and where Kohn is now a friend (professor emeritus). My local area is studded with lore about the Mothers, like which of the clubs they had played in and which schools they had attended. When I first moved to the area, on the street I saw Ray Collins, the original leader of the band that invited Zappa to join. Collins was homeless (or living out of a van, I believe). He died less than a year later.