Frank Zappa: Encyclopedia II - Frank Zappa - 1970s

Frank Zappa - 1970s

After he disbanded the original Mothers, Zappa released the acclaimed solo instrumental album Hot Rats, featuring his jazz-inflected guitar playing backed by jazz, blues and R&B session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummer John Guerin, multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood, and bassist Shuggie Otis. It remains one of his most popular and accessible recordings and inarguably had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.

Around 1970, Zappa put together a new version of The Mothers that included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, previous Mothers member Ian Underwood, and no fewer than three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, who before joining The Turtles had been the lead singer of The Leaves (of "Hey Joe" fame); and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who due to persisting legal/contractual problems adopted the stage-monikers "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie," or "Flo & Eddie" for short.

The new lineup debuted on Zappa's next solo LP Chunga's Revenge, which was followed by the sprawling soundtrack to the movie project 200 Motels, featuring both The Mothers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time George Duke was in the band and appears both in the film and on the sound track as a musician. He left the band to play with Cannonball Adderly and was replaced by Don Preston from the original Mothers, who acted in the film, but is not playing on the soundtrack. This double disc album was followed by two live sets, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From L.A., which included the 20-minute track Billy The Mountain, Zappa's satire on rock opera, set in Southern California. The former features hilariously low-concept cover art (similar to the bootleg albums that had recently become popular) just at the apex of the era of great rock "album cover artwork".

In 1971 there were two serious setbacks. While performing in Montreux, Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a disastrous fire that burned down the casino where they were playing —an event immortalised in Deep Purple's classic song Smoke On The Water. The actual event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album Swiss Cheese / Fire, released legally as part of Zappa's Beat the Boots compilation.

Then in December 1971, Zappa was attacked on stage at the Rainbow Theatre, London. A jealous boyfriend of a female fan pushed Frank off the stage and into the orchestra pit. Zappa suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx (which caused his voice to drop a third after it healed). This left him wheelchair bound for a time, forcing him off the road for over a year. (He was wearing a leg brace for a period thereafter, had a noticeable limp and couldn't stand for very long while onstage.) He said one leg healed "shorter than the other" (a reference found years later in the lyrics of Dancin' Fool). He employed tour bodyguard John Smothers, who was an accomplished martial artist, former military chauffeur and bodyguard for several big-name celebrities. Meanwhile, the Mothers were left in limbo, and eventually formed the core of Flo and Eddie's band as they set out on their own.

In 1971-72 Zappa released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, which were recorded during the layoff from live concert touring, using floating lineups of session players and Mothers alumni. He began touring again in late 1972, first with a Grand Wazoo 'big band' and with groups that variously included Ian Underwood on brass and reeds, Ruth Underwood on vibes, Sal Marquez (trumpet), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals) and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin).

He continued a high rate of production through the early 1970s, including the excellent and accessible albums One Size Fits All and Apostrophe, Over-Nite Sensation and Roxy & Elsewhere featuring ever-changing versions of a band though still called the Mothers. These albums were notable for the highly-technical jazz-fusion the band was renowned for, demonstrated on such pieces as Don't You Ever Wash That Thing or the Be-Bop Tango.

Frank Zappa - Läther

In the mid 70's Zappa began recording material for Läther (pronounced "leather"), an ambitious four-LP studio project extravaganza. Läther featured all aspects of Zappa's musical styles —rock tunes, theatrical works, complex instrumental compositions, and Zappa's own trademark tube distortion-drenched guitar solos were all recorded for the release. What happened next is subject to debate.

According to popular theory (and the liner notes of the re-release of Läther itself), he had completed the recording for the album when Warner Bros. Records executives, wary of a quadruple-LP, decided not to support the project. Zappa soon appeared on the (at the time) influential Los Angeles radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast the whole album and instructing listeners to make their own tape recordings. Soon after, some of the material from Läther was officially released on Zappa in New York. After a legal battle with Warner, in order to satisfy his contract, Zappa allowed the label to release much of the music on three LPs instead of four, but he had little input beyond that. The records Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, and Orchestral Favorites were dumped on the market with no promotion and only cheaply produced (but exquisite) cover art by Gary Panter. These albums nevertheless include some classic Zappa tunes like "RDNZL", "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", and "Sleep Dirt".

An alternate theory of the Läther debacle was that upon completing the four aforementioned albums (Zappa in New York, Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, and Orchestral Favorites), Zappa turned the albums in at once, to complete his contract. Warner Brothers balked at releasing five new LPs (Zappa in New York being a double album) of a single artist at once, fearing that the LPs would cut into each other's sales. Perturbed at what he felt was record label ineptitude, Zappa shipped the albums to other, competing record labels. Somewhere along the line it was decided that one triple album would be more appealing than four standalone albums, and with some editing and tape splices, Läther was born. This theory is supported by the fact that each of the "Läther babies" is a fully realized concept of its own (the live album Zappa in New York, Sleep Dirt, which was later overdubbed with lyrics and turned into an operetta, the "mini-sampler" feel of Studio Tan, and the orchestral works on the aptly named Orchestral Favorites), and, with the exception of Studio Tan, each features songs unreleased on Läther. If the former theory is true, one would have to wonder how Warner Brothers (a label Zappa publicly disliked) managed to secure unreleased material from Zappa. Läther was finally re-constructed and released in its original form in 1996.

In 1976 the cessation of cordial relations with Zappa's long-time manager Herb Cohen also occurred. The breakup was an acrimonious affair; exacerbated by Zappa's ongoing feud with Warner Bros. staff. Cohen had created DiscReet Records with Zappa as a label of Warner Brothers, in order to be used as a business venture to aid funding of Zappa albums. Zappa however discovered that Cohen had been skimming more than he was allocated from the label, and he also alleged that Cohen had used some of Frank's money to fund other recordings such as Captain Beefheart. Cohen filed a lawsuit against Zappa in return, due to Zappa taking the master copies of Zoot Allures directly to Warner, bypassing DiscReet completely. Whilst it is unknown what came of the lawsuits, with both parties remaining tight-lipped about the rancorous affair, Zappa and Cohen would never work together again.

It was during the Läther period that Zappa recruited Ike Willis as a lead singer and backup guitarist. Zappa's 1970s period ended with the releases of the highly regarded Joe's Garage, which heavily featured Willis as voice of "Joe", and Sheik Yerbouti (1979), which featured Zappa classics such as Dancin' Fool, Bobby Brown (Goes Down), Flakes, Broken Hearts are for Assholes, as well as Jewish Princess, which received some controversial attention. Joe's Garage is considered to be one of Zappa's definitive achievements of the period, and Sheik Yerbouti was a commercial success, though many tracks were composed or largely recorded live during the Läther period of 1977. In fact, every song on Sheik Yerbouti uses live backing tracks recorded during the 1977–1978 tour, with varying amounts of studio overdubs added.

According to Zappa's record company Rykodisc: "Bobby Brown Goes Down" is perhaps the oddest of Zappa's successes. This colorful tale of a young man's encounter with a dyke named Freddie" would never get airplay in the US, but it reached the top of the charts in Norway and Austria, was Top Ten in Germany and remains a favorite in territories where English is not the primary language. Said Zappa to Matt Groening in a 1992 Guitar World interview, "I don't think anything has outsold Sheik Yerbouti, partly because "Bobby Brown" keeps becoming a hit every ten years... I think it was back on the charts again in Norway. For no apparent reason, it was back."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "1970s", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki