Terry Wimberley
Terry Wimberley was a pupil at Antelope Valley High School, where Zappa went to school.
In 1959, he first played keyboards and piano in the band The Omens, which had Alex St. Clair (guitar), Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood , Gary Burkey (alto), David Giego (trumpet), Pete Lovio (tenor), Frank Lynch (trombone), Wally Salazar (guitar), Fred Salazar (trumpet), Pat Prue (drums) and Don Van Vliet (vocals) as members. When St. Clair left, he was replaced by Jerry Handley. Wimberley learned Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood how to play saxophone. Originally Wimberley was considered as The Omens' singer, but this role went to Van Vliet, who had a more powerful voice. [1]
Wimberley later joined The Blackouts, where Frank Zappa was a member. [2] Here, Wimberley played piano. [3] His voice can be heard among the other bandmembers during The Blackouts (The Track) on The Lost Episodes.[4]
Frank Zappa mentions Wimberley and fellow Blackouts member Johnny Franklin in the sleeve of Freak Out! (1966), under the heading: "These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them", and he is also mentioned in The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989).
Frank Zappa about Terry Wimberley
"We had a piano player named Terry Wimberly. And Wimberly always wanted to be the missing link between Fats Domino and Otis Blackwell [...]. And he decided one day that he wasn't funky enough in his normal white boy condition, living there in the desert. He decided in his infinite wisdom that he was going to get all the things he needed to be more like Fats Domino. [...] I don't how he did it, folks— He got a hundred dollars together to buy a hundred dollar zircon ring. Do you know how big— what size zircon you can buy for a hundred dollars? So he had this enormous, cheap-looking, obviously-fraudulent diamond sort of thing on his little finger that he used to wear to school all the time. And so, since that moment, I've always considered the zircon to be the symbol of wealth—not wealth, but the ultimate cheapness as applied to the back of a comic book. And it was cheap grandeur, you know? The grandeur that we can all afford, but if you dare to afford it you can make yourself look just like Terry Wimberly playing the piano [...]. And it helped his piano technique tremendously. He could play triplets like nobody's business with that thing on his finger."[5]
See also
References
- ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/Omens.html
- ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/Freak_Out_Contributors.html#WimberlyTerry
- ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/Over-Nite_Sensation.html#Dinah
- ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/lyrics/The_Lost_Episodes.html#Blackouts
- ↑ Frank Zappa, interviewed on WABX, Detroit, 2 November 1973: https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/Over-Nite_Sensation.html#Dinah
