Here's a message from Facebook by Art Tripp (forwarded
by Chris Garcia)
ARTIE
TRIPP FOR RAY COLLINS
It's
not quite dawned on me yet that Ray Collins is no longer in this terrestrial
world. Since the late 1960's it had always been a type of comfort to me to know
that Ray was around. And Ray did get around. A child of the 1930's, he came of
age in the 1950's when times were good. He developed a free spirit and a
resistance to labels and rules. His fine tenor voice got him work in prominent
L.A. doo-wop bands; but he took other types of work as well. One of them was a
good paying job building sets for the movie studios. He told me he quit because
he got tired of the idiots.
He
joined up with Roy Estrada and Jimmy Carl Black in the Soul Giants. When their
guitar player quit they hired Frank Zappa, a musician Ray had worked with
earlier in the 1960's. Soon the Mothers of Invention were born, and Ray helped
front the band, and was its lead vocalist for the next three years. His ribald
and off beat sense of humor was a perfect complement to the unclassifiable
group.
When I
joined the band in 1968, it was as if I'd died and gone to heaven. The humor,
the iconoclasm, the musicianship, and the wide variety of music were a perfect
fit. And to me Ray was the fountainhead of the basic nature of the band. Yet
later that year Ray's distaste for the group's musical direction compelled him
to announce that he was leaving the group. I was stunned. Everyone was shocked.
How could he quit when the group was getting so popular, and starting to
provide us with so much work? But off he went, and I felt that he took the
spirit of the Mothers with him.
Ray had
his own convictions, and he was never one to veer from them. He resolutely held
to his beliefs no matter what the popular course. As a man of the people, an
everyman, Ray was a true free spirit-a Beatnik, and a wanderer.
I have
many memories of Ray. We played the Grammy Awards in '68 at the plush NY
Hilton. Steve Allen was the host that year, Woody Herman and his Herd was the
house band. When they drew the curtain up for our performance Ray walked over
to Steve and said, "How's your bird"? Allen let out a big horse
laugh, and the guys in Herman's band doubled over in stitches.
Ray
joined us for a last gig in San Diego in 1969. During the show Ray improvised a
gag which lampooned Jim Morrison's "exposure" on stage a few weeks
prior. Morrison's antics had sent shockwaves throughout rock 'n roll, and
people suspected he'd gone too far. So Ray's satire caused the entire audience
to come unglued.
We kept
in touch over the years. A few months ago my wife and I went out to L.A. to
visit old friends. We got together with Ray down at the venerable Phillipe's
Restaurant near Union Station. Afterwards we spent some time at Olvera Street,
then we walked down to Union Station to see Ray off on his train back to
Claremont. After a few final words, he turned and walked down the tunnel to his
train. As I watched him go, I knew that it would be the last time I was to see
Ray. Yet I never would have dreamed that he'd be gone in six months. Goodbye,
old friend. I can hear you singing to them in heaven.
Art
Tripp
NOTE
FROM GMOI DRUMMER Christopher Garcia
Over
the past few years I have had the pleasure of getting to know Arthur Dyer Tripp
via phone calls, emails and such and sending music written and otherwise back
and forth and sharing way too many stories. Had the pleasure of meeting Art and
his wife in Los Angeles and again in New Orleans this year (2012).
When I
heard about Ray Collins I gave Art a call. I received this from Art today and
he said I could post it along with this pic taken this year,
THANKS ART!!
