Frank Zappa – Hot Rats

Frank Zappa was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era. Hot Rats is his second solo album, released in October 1969. It was Zappa’s first recording project after the dissolution of the original version of the Mothers of Invention. It features the work of several artists in addition to Zappa, including one former member of the Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, and Don “Sugarcane” Harris. Five of the six songs are instrumental; the other, “Willie the Pimp”, features vocals by Beefheart. In his original sleeve notes, Zappa described the album as “a movie for your ears”. Zappa used advanced recording equipment to create an album of outstanding technical and musical quality. The album was recorded on what Zappa described as a “homemade sixteen track” recorder; the machine was custom built by engineers at TTG Studios in Hollywood in late 1968.

Label: Zappa Records
Cat. # ZR 3841-1