Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
Listen to a condensed audio version of this review by Greg
OK, I know what you are thinking. This guy lives in the past. Every album he talks about was recorded fifty years ago. BORING! Give me some new stuff! Well, you are welcome to check out my previous reviews on ALBUMREVIEW.NET and go to the Kiwanuka, Greta Van Fleet and Hum reviews, as those albums were released respectively in 2019, 2017 and 2020.
History dictates the future. In many cases, it also helps civilizations make better decisions for their future. It educates us about our background and greatly influences us for the future. The past gives us courage and protects us.
Frank Zappa’s second solo album, Hot Rats, was a groundbreaking piece of music that brought jazz, R&B, doo-wop and rock together into one sound. Released on October 10th, 1969, Hot Rats gave the public a different opinion of the then very odd musical composer named, Frank Zappa.
The reason I selected this album was based primarily on history. In 1969, the popular music charts consisted, believe it or not, of mostly rock bands. The Beatles, Glenn Campbell, The Supremes,Creedence Clearwater Revival, Blood Sweat & Tears and Blind Faith, one of Eric Clapton’s many musical projects. The principal formula and focus was on writing hit songs that could be played on the radio. Despite these bands lack of a “bubble gum” image, these were many of the musical acts that dominated the radio airwaves in 1969 and 1970.
And then comes an instrumental jazz rock album out of nowhere from a guy named Frank Zappa. Frank interests me to another level. For he was famously known for setting out to make sure he did “not” create a radio hit. For Frank wanted to put everything in his head down on paper and compose it like a symphony. He was quoted many times as saying in public, “If you do not enjoy my music, that’s alright. I am not concerned with that. I am doing this for myself”.
How gutsy is that? It borders on potential career suicide in most cases.
Frank Vincent Zappa was born on December 21, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland. In his early life, his only interest was in Chemistry. He expressed an interest early on in blowing things up. Frank spent a significant amount of time creating objects that eventually could detonate or explode on their own. It was not until 1953 when Frank was 13 when Zappa became interested in music. After his father moved the family around the country, taking jobs with different chemical weapon manufacturing plants, the family settled in Lancaster, California in 1956. His father worked at a nearby Gas/Nerve plant which created chemical weapons for the U.S. Government which further fed his interest in the world of Chemistry. But slowly, music was becoming Frank’s main interest. Early on he did not listen to pop music. Frank developed an interest in composing classical music. When you mention classical music, Mozart and Beethoven are the first composers that come to mind. But Zappa would not be inspired by these famed geniuses. Instead, he became interested in the science of sound. He began to study percussion and would experiment with piecing together different noises to determine how they would sound when put together.
“Different noises”. This is all I thought of when I was first introduced to Frank Zappa music. I did not get it. I did not get it at all! There are still songs in his catalogue that make me scratch my head. Now I am getting into the meat of this review. For what inspired me to review Zappa and his Hot Rats album was his lifelong mission to consistently reinvent himself and his music.
Zappa formed his first professional band, The Mothers of Invention in 1965. After some reasonable underground success, Zappa’s band achieved some minor commercial success and were known in the music scene as an experimental jazz-rock band that had no boundaries on stage. At the height of their success, Zappa disbanded The Mothers of Invention in 1969. He quickly gathered a new collection of musicians to record what would be one of his most experimental albums, Hot Rats. The cover of Hot Ratsalone, like Black Sabbath’s first album, gave me nightmares when I first saw it. Unlike most pop record covers, portraying the band members smiling at the camera, Hot Rats’ cover shows half the face of a creepy, clown looking woman very slowly climbing out of an empty fountain. Her pale face and hands give you a sense that if you listen to this album, she will jump off the cover to come get you! As I have stated in previous reviews, the album cover artwork many times would influence my decision to purchase an album, despite not hearing it.
Recorded in just two months, August and September 1969, Hot Rats is a jam album. The record kicks off with a circus for your ears, the famed Peaches En Regalia. I attach the word “famed” to this song because I was aware of it before I knew it had been written by Zappa. In the 1990s, the Giant Improv Rock Band, Phish played Peaches during many shows. I grew to love it, but for many years, never bothered to find out who wrote it. Phish’s version simply includes guitar, drums, keyboards and bass. When you listen to the original version on Hot Rats, HOLY EXPLOSION! The track is a mix of flute, clarinet, keyboard, multi-saxophone and guitar. As weird as this sounds, Zappa pieces the instruments together perfectly. This song provided the introduction to Jazz Fusion.
In the 1960s, Jazz was changing quickly. It had morphed from a softer, smooth, “relax by the fireplace” kind of feel to a more modern, aggressive, minor chord, odd collection of sounds. If you listen to Miles Davis records from the late 1960s and 1970s, they are significantly different from the 40s, 50s and early 60s sound.
Hot Rats continues this fusion induced medicine with the second track, Willie the Pimp. I challenge all of you to listen to this track and try not to move. Willie the Pimp strikes me as a slight departure from Zappa’s odd sounding percussion songs and comes across as just straight rock n’ roll with a blues flavor. The opening riff combining violin, bass and Zappa’s rock guitar makes me envision kicking the patio table over, spinning around, bobbing my head and just grooving to the beat. If you enjoy ripping, cutting, bluesy guitar sounds, this song is for you. Zappa’s high school friend, Don Van Vliet, better known by his stage name as “Captain Beefheart” provides the raspy vocal part that adds to the bluesy main riff.
What is unique about this album is that Zappa encourage his bandmates to just jam during recording sessions. Unlike previous albums, where Frank was controlling, strict and boss-like, this time around he told the musicians to just think of this as jazz and not to hold back. This type of relaxed approach is definitely reflected in their music. Another unique item on this album is the violin playing of Don “Sugarcane” Harris. Sugarcane as Zappa called him, was an old friend of Frank’s. When Zappa set out to invite him to record on Hot Rats, for several weeks, he could not locate his whereabouts. Frank finally found out he was in jail on a drug charge. Zappa bailed his old friend out of jail and flew him to Los Angeles to join his band for the studio sessions. Harris was known as a pioneer for the electric violin. In one studio session, a Zappa bandmate described a moment of shock when he looked over at Harris during an amazing violin solo to figure out how he was creating his sound. Harris had broken all of the hair (or strings) off his violin bow and was playing with just the wood part of the bow. This was something no one had ever seen or heard before.
The jam session continues on the album’s third track, Son of Mr. Green Genes. As you can tell by now, Zappa was the king (the absolute king!) of extremely odd song titles. Max Bennet’s bass guitar also shines on this album, providing the swinging foundation to a song once again riddled with horns and keyboards, only to burst into another gritty blues guitar solo. This album put Zappa on everyone’s radar as being an elite electric guitar player. During earlier albums, he was seen as more of a strange composer who wrote exactly what he was thinking at the time. Ian Underwood also deserves tremendous credit for his contribution to this album. Underwood, a staple throughout many of Zappa’s lineup changes, plays the piano, organ, flute, several different saxophones and several different clarinets. This song is as Zappa called many of his songs, “a movie for your ears”. The jam just does not seem to end.
Little Umbrellas, the fourth track, begins with Max Bennet’s standup bass. This track offers a slower tempo, less ripping guitar but not void of what sounds like 30 instruments piled on top of one another. As the bass and drums hold down a steady rhythm, Ian Underwood’s piano is all over the map, giving you a taste of what the keys sound like on a typical Zappa album. At only 3:04, this song is a nice jazzy change of pace from the other five.
Zappa and his team return to jamming madness on the album’s fifth track, The Gumbo Variations. This song enables all the musicians to have their time in the sun. Underwood’s sax leads the charge, atop of catchy background of guitars. Paul Humphrey’s drums lay the foundation along with Bennet’s bass (once again), opening the door for the saxophone to sound as if it had just escaped from prison. It is almost as if each musician was let out of a cage and gave the best performance of their life on this record. My eyes are closed every time I hear it.
At only six tracks, It Must be a Camel rounds out this 1969 classic album. Similar to Little Umbrellas, this song has a slower softer groove than It is also important to mention, John Guerin, also plays drums on Hot Rats, specifically on Willie the Pimp, Little Umbrellas and It Must be a Camel. Guerin’s drumming is at another level on this track, making it virtually impossible to air drum to. This would not the first song I would play for someone who was hesitant about getting into Zappa. But if you find yourself sitting one evening with a musician, well Must be a Camel or any of Zappa’s tracks will entice them. It is simply like nothing you have ever heard before.
Just when you think Frank Zappa is nothing but a freak who produces noise from your headphones, take a listen to Hot Rats. This album is from Neptune. It is still amazing to me there are musicians out there who can play this kind of music. Getting back to history and its ability to dictate the future, Hot Rats plays an important part in the history and evolution of music. For Zappa influenced millions of musicians after him to take that next step into the abyss of what is described by some as freak music. But what many times turns people on to good music, is when they hear a song being played by their favorite band, not knowing it is actually a cover song. Not knowing it is actually played by a musician, band or composer they thought they hated. It has happened to me. I am sure it has happened to you.
So, if you are curious as to why music has transformed and morphed many times over history, listen to Hot Rats. When you compare it to what was being released in 1968 and 1969, perhaps only The Beatles White Album was as strange and odd as Hot Rats. But even The Beatles set out to write hits on a regular basis. I just find it fascinating that a musician who set out only to please himself with his music achieved such success and notoriety.
History IS important. It tells a story of how we got here, how it was done and in many cases it does indeed dictate the future.