50th Anniversary of The Great Reunion. In Spring 1975, estranged friends – Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart put their differences to one side and set out on an historic tour. The full story of that reunion is told in micro-detail on this deluxe reissue of the pair’s 1975 Bongo Fury album.
A FRIENDSHIP FORMS
The story began a long, long time ago. Frank Vincent Zappa and Don Glen Vliet first met when they were classmates at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California in the mid-1950s. The pair found that they had much in common, including a taste for music – particularly blues and doo-wop, for outsider art and for horror movies. They became firm friends and, as the 50s morphed into 60s, Zappa and Vliet were making music together.
In 1964, Zappa suggested that Vliet adopt the stage name of Captain Beefheart and drafted the script for a movie: Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People, in which he envisaged his friend taking the lead role. The movie didn’t happen, but the Captain Beefheart name endured, with the newly-monikered Captain fronting their R&B band – The Soots – in that guise.
PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION
The Soots didn’t survive but both Zappa and Beefheart started to make their separate ways in music and, by 1969, both were arriving at a seminal stage in their respective careers. Zappa – with his band, the Mothers – had enjoyed consistent success with albums that included Freak Out (1066), We’re Only In It For The Money (1968) and Uncle Meat (1969). Beefheart’s success had been less commercially measurable, but his albums Safe as Milk (1967) and Strictly Personal (1968) had certainly caused heads to turn and eyeballs to pop.
Zappa and Beefheart made their significant professional connection in 1969 when Zappa assumed the role of ‘collaborator and catalyst’ for Beefheart’s landmark Trout Mask Replica album – a work that remains one of the most singularly challenging and influential records ever made. That same year, Beefheart guested on Zappa’s triumphal Hot Rats album, on which he lent his trademark growl to the album’s only vocal track, Willie the Pimp.
Sadly, those collaborations provided the spur for one of music’s most legendary fallings-out, after Beefheart – in a fit of what would now probably be called ‘Trump-like petulance’ -publicly criticised Zappa’s production of Trout Mask Replica. Zappa and Beefheart barely spoke to each other for the next five years.
GIZZA JOB...
But, in 1974, Beefheart bit the bullet and called his old friend. The call wasn’t without an ulterior motive – Beefheart had, not for the first time, run into contractual problems and was in need of money – so he asked Zappa for a job. The start of 1975 was a busy period for Frank Zappa. He and The Mothers completed their album, One Size Fits All, in March of that year, before Zappa flew to the UK to give evidence in his ongoing court case against The Royal Albert Hall. The Mothers were, themselves, in a state of some turmoil, after percussionist Ruth Underwood and drummer Chester Thompson had left the lineup. A 26-date US tour was looming and, with Zappa in the process of pulling together the musicians for the tour, the door was open for The Grand Reunion.
BEEFHEART SAYS:
The incorporation of Beefheart into The Mothers wasn’t, perhaps, as smooth as history has gone on to relate. Let’s take Beefheart’s account first:
“I just called [Zappa] up and told him I’d like to see him and he said ‘Well, come on down and hear this album I’m working on,’” recalled Beefheart. “I said, ‘Well,. Yeah, I’d like to, but I’ve gotten out of the business!’ and he said: ‘Oh no, you can’t do that – come on down and hear some records, you know; we’ll go on tour…”
Zappa’s account of the discussion was altogether more cautious:
“He apologized for all the garbagio and asked for a job,” said Zappa, recalling that Beefheart had attended an audition in October 1974 which, in Zappa’s words, he had ‘flunked.’ “See,” Zappa had continued, “He had a problem with rhythm and we were very rhythm-oriented. Things have to happen on the beat. I had him come up on the bandstand at our rehearsal hall to try to sing Willie The Pimp and he couldn’t get through it. I figured if he couldn’t get through that, I didn’t stand much of a chance of teaching him the other stuff.”
MOTHERS ON TOUR
The truth may very well lie in the no-man’s land between those accounts but, happily, Zappa agreed to allow his old friend on board the tour bus. Captain Beefheart was a Mother. The Mothers lineup for the tour also featured Bruce Fowler on trombone and his brother, Tom Fowler on bass, George Duke on keyboards and Napoleon Murphy Brock on sax and keyboards. A new drummer, Terry Bozio was recruited to replace Chester Thompson on drums – Bozzio would stay with Zappa for the next three years – and, to complete the lineup, another of Zappa’s and Vliet’s old school pals – Denny Walley – came in to play slide guitar.
The tour kicked off on 10th April 1975, at the Bridges Auditorium in Claremont, California and wound up with two dates at ‘hippie hangout,’ Armadillo World HQ in Austin, Texas on 20-21 May 1975. And, it’s at those final two shows that history was made, because they were the concerts that were committed to vinyl for the Bongo Fury album. Originally released in the USA on 2nd October 1975 (contractual issues delayed the album’s UK release until 1989), Bongo Fury was a mainly-live album that captured the volatile, joyous chemistry of two lifelong friends.
BONGO FURY (50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION)
And, now, the 50th anniversary of that landmark album is being celebrated by Zappa records/Ume, in a newly-expanded edition. Bongo Fury (50th Anniversary Edition) is available in a variety of formats, including a six-disc (5CD/1 Blu-ray Audio) Super Deluxe edition boxset that features 57 tracks in total, over 80% of which are previously unreleased. Produced by Joe Travers, this collection features Bob Ludwig’s 2012 remaster of the original album, together with five additional session outtakes and oddities, plus – and this is the centrepiece of the collection – 2025 stereo remixes of the recordings of the complete Austin concerts of 20th and 21st May 1975.
Bongo Fury has also been remastered for vinyl in all-analogue from the original tapes and is available in three forms: a 2LP set, a single album on black vinyl and a single album on coloured vinyl. All are pressed on 180g vinyl. And finally, the Super Deluxe Edition is available digitally.
HIGHLIGHTS AND SPECIAL BEEFHEART MOMENTS
Things to look out for on the new set include the extraordinary Portuguese Lunar Landing, a previously unreleased gem, recorded during the opening night of the tour at the Claremont show. It’s a song that tells the story of an encounter between a Portuguese astronaut and an lunar inhabitant, it’s a daft 9-minute epic. Also previously unreleased are extended versions of Carolina Hard Core Ecstasy and 200 Years Old and Born to Suck, a song that features Zappa and Beefheart singing over the guitar solo from Florentine Pogen, a track from the One Size Fits All album.
The setlists for the two live concert recordings are similar, though not identical, and include a wide range of material from Zappa’s then-recent and not-so-recent albums – including Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe(‘), Uncle Meat and Freakout. Outstanding moments include a pair of versions of the jazzy Velvet Sunrise, a blistering take on Apostrophe interesting versions of Stink Foot and Camarillo Brillo and what is, perhaps, the definitive version of The Torture Never Stops, recorded on the first night of the Austin residency and with Beefheart in full-flow. An odd diversion occurs when the auditorium is evacuated when a bomb threat is made – Zappa’s handling of the disruption is certainly impressive.
Glorious Beefheart moments are thick on the ground, with Debra Kadabra and the wonderful Muffin Man standing out at both shows. And, of course, both concerts were concluded by amazing renditions of Willie the Pimp.
ADVANCED CONCEPTS & HOWLIN’ WOLF
“When I listen to this album, I still can’t believe how fortunate I was to be part of it,” recalls slide guitarist and new-boy Mother Denny Walley, in his extensive liner notes. “Frank’s directing technique incorporated hand signals that needed to be understood. You never knew what would happen next, so you had to be ready for anything. I loved it! This was like being paid to go to college.”
And, considering – at the time – the value that his oft-volatile friend added to his meticulously-drilled Mothers, Zappa concluded: “With Beefheart in the band, there’s a guy who’s really into words and what they can do. I respect his literary ability, especially as, in some instances, I wonder if he’s literate at all…
“The way he relates to language is unique. With somebody else in the band who’s into it at that level, he gives me a chance to do things I haven’t been able to do before. The way in which he takes my text and brings it across to an audience is something to behold. He can really make the words come to life. For all of his psychological and technical limitations he’s really an artist. he’s got this great mind that functions in a realm for which there is little use in this society. What do you do with a guy who has these advanced concepts and wants to sing them in a voice like Howlin’ Wolf?”
A LANDMARK ALBUM
Bongo Fury remains a landmark album. It was the final album of the 1970s to be released under the name of The Mothers and it also features the final musical collaboration of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. It marked an occasion on which the friendship between two likeminded (to an extent…) souls was rekindled and that friendship continued until the very end. In particular, Beefheart made a point of phoning Zappa on a daily basis during the latter’s final days. As the album’s press release concludes. They were: “A pair of true Muffin Men to the very end.”
Listen to Debra Kadabra, recorded live at Armadillo World HQ, Austin, Texas, in May 1975 below:
At The Barrier: Facebook / X / Instagram
Categories: Uncategorised
