Bongo Fury

Bongo Fury is a collaborative album by American experimental rock musicians Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Zappa's band the Mothers, released in October 1975. It contains both material recorded live in concert, as well as recorded in the studio.

The album was the first collaboration between Zappa and Beefheart in about five years due to creative and personal tensions, and was their final major collaboration.

History

Zappa and Beefheart (born Donald Van Vliet) met as teenagers in the Antelope Valley region of southern California, and found they shared a love for blues and R&B music and eclectic sensibilities. They had collaborated in the past, notably with Zappa producing Beefheart's album Trout Mask Replica and Beefheart performing the lead vocal on "Willie The Pimp" from Zappa's album Hot Rats (both 1969). They were estranged for a period, but by the mid '70s tensions had cooled enough for them to join forces and tour.

In April 1975 Zappa had a one-sided demo acetate disc cut at Kendun Recorders in Burbank, California. This unreleased disc contains "Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra", "200 Years Old" and "Regyptian Strut". Zappa's liner notes in the June 1975 album One Size Fits All mention a planned studio follow up album which never appeared. Zappa released Bongo Fury instead. The album contains a four minute version of "200 Years Old" which was edited from the one on the April 1975 acetate.

Overview

The album is a notable entry in Zappa's discography, because it was the last to feature a majority of his early 1970s band, which appeared on Over-Nite Sensation (1973), Apostrophe (') (1974), Roxy & Elsewhere (1974), and One Size Fits All (1975). It's also the last album to be released with the Mothers of Invention, which wouldn't release anything else until the 1992 archival album, Playground Psychotics.

Napoleon Murphy Brock's vocals are featured both on the sprawling "Advance Romance" as well as on the three-part harmonies of "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy". Captain Beefheart, in his only tour with Zappa's band, delivers vocals and harmonica on several tracks, including his two short prose readings "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". Bongo Fury also marks the first appearance of Terry Bozzio, who would become Zappa's featured drummer between 1975 and 1978.

The live portions were recorded on May 20 and 21, 1975, at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas. Tracks 5, 6 and the introduction to 9 were recorded in January 1975 during the sessions which produced One Size Fits All and much of Studio Tan.

Critical reception

Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote: "This sentimental reunion album, recorded (where else?) in Austin with (what else?) additional L.A. studio work, is dismissed by Zappaphiles and 'Fhearthearts alike, but what were they expecting? Perhaps because there's a blues avatar up top, the jazzy music has a soulful integrity, and though it's embarrassing to hear the Captain deliver Frankie's latest pervo exploitations, the rest of the songs are funnier because he's singing them."

In a 1979 interview, Zappa made his disdain for Robert Christgau clear. Zappa said "So what am I supposed to do? Go around and tell everyone how moral I am because Robert Christgau thinks I’m immoral? The guy’s a xxxxing pinhead, let’s face it." Zappa was talking about a Christgau review of Sheik Yerbouti. Zappa also said "Let me tell you about guys like that: they’re gnats, they’re xxxxing gnats. They ought to be licensed to, touch a typewriter."

A retrospective review from Lindsay Planner of Allmusic ranked Bongo Fury at 3.5 stars out of 5 stars, saying "Most Zappa enthusiasts either love or hate Bongo Fury," with some fans disapproving of Beefheart's vocals or disliking the stylistic shift away from Zappa's jazz-oriented albums of recent years. Nonetheless, Planner stated the album "had something for everyone" with good performances from all contributors.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Frank Zappa.

50th Anniversary Edition

Personnel

Musicians

• Frank Zappa – lead guitar, lead (2, 5, 6, 9) and backing vocals
• Captain Beefheart – harp, lead (1, 3–5, 8, 9) and backing vocals, shopping bags (also soprano sax)
• George Duke – keyboards, lead (2, 7) and backing vocals
• Napoleon Murphy Brock – sax, lead (2, 7) and backing vocals
• Bruce Fowler – trombone, fantastic dancing
• Tom Fowler – bass, also dancing
• Denny Walley – slide guitar, backing vocals
• Terry Bozzio – drums, moisture
• Chester Thompson – drums (5, 6)
• Robert "Frog" Camarena – backing vocals on "Debra Kadabra" (uncredited)

Production

• Michael Braunstein – engineer
• Frank Hubach – engineer
• Kelly Kotera – engineer
• Kerry McNabb – engineer
• Davey Moire – engineer
• Cal Schenkel – design
• John Williams – photography, cover photo
• Bob Stone – engineer
• Mike D. Stone of the Record Plant – engineer
• Mark Linett – tour mix engineer
• Paul Hof – tour production manager
• Coy Featherstone – tour lighting designer
• Unity – tour lighting designer

Charts