Ray Collins, who invited guitarist Frank Zappa to join the band that went on to became the Mothers of Invention, has died at age 75, the New York Times reports.
Ray Collins' friend Patrick Brayer tells the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin that the musician from Claremont, Calif., died Monday, five days after a heart attack.
Collins sang with various local bands after leaving Pomona High School in 1956. In 1964, he joined the Soul Giants, an R&B cover band that performed at the Broadside Club in Pomona. By 1966, they had become the Mothers of Invention, releasing their first album, "Freak Out," on Verve Records.
In a 2009 interview with The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Collins said he'd grown tired of Zappa's emphasis on satire: "I wanted to make beautiful music. I was raised on Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole." Still, Collins reunited with his former bandmate several more times, including on the 1968 doo-wop concept album "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets."
Collins sang on three albums, then left the Mothers, saying their comedic approach to music didn't suit him, according to the Associated Press.
Ray Collins was was reportedly living out of a van in Claremont, California, where he was frequently seen on sidewalk benches.
He'd worked as a taxi driver in Los Angeles and a dishwasher in Hawaii, receiving Social Security checks and some royalties from "Memories of El Monte," a ballad he and Zappa wrote based on the chords to the Penguins' "Earth Angel."
