Ruben and the Jets: For Real/Con Safos

WHEN FRANK ZAPPA released his 1968 Cruising With Ruben & The Jets album of parodies of '50s R&B and doo wop, a number of radio stations mistook it for the real thing. Zappa loved the screaming falsetto harmonies and growling saxophones of West Coast doo wop, so when Ruben Guevara approached him for permission to use the name for a real group, Zappa got involved. Zappa engineered and produced For Real, arranged a couple of the songs and wrote the opening track, 'If I Could Only Be With You', a classic Zappa doo wop pastiche which appears nowhere else.