Track list
- Peaches En Regalia
- Willie The Pimp
- Son Of Mr. Green Genes
- Little Umbrellas
- The Gumbo Variations
- It Must Be A Camel
Recording details
Date – July – August 1969
One of the first albums to be recorded on 16 track.
Recorded at T.T.G., Los Angeles (probably where Mirror Man was recorded), Sunset Sound, Los Angeles and Whitney Studios, Glendale.
Album overview from Graham Johnston
When I first bought this album I danced around my bedroom with glee while listening to it and then took it out with me that evening to force everyone else I knew to marvel at it too (a surprisingly mixed response if I remember rightly). It still gives me the same urge well over two decades later.
This is the Frank Zappa album that even non-Zappa fans like, and it is a corker. Mostly loud, swinging, instrumental electric jazz-rock with touches of psychedelia and blues. Immediately comprehensible complex melodies soar and toes tap along: it’s an unstoppable onslaught of Frank at his funkiest.
Although it’s a consistently stunning album I’m sure the highpoint for most listeners (regardless of whether they come from a Beefheart or Zappa background) is Willie The Pimp with its rocking swampy guitar and arresting Beefheart vocal. Full of sleazy grit and disgruntled gusto, Beefheart’s vocal is perfectly at home here.
Unmissable, as is the album artwork by Cal Schenkel.
Beefheart as depicted on the inside of the gatefold album. A fitting setting.
Purchase Hot Rats
- CD from amazon.co.uk
- Mp3 from amazon.co.uk
- Vinyl from amazon.co.uk
- Transcribed guitar tab from amazon.co.uk
- CD from amazon.com
- Vinyl from amazon.com
Releases
(to be completed!)
- 1969 US Original on Bizarre/Reprise RS6536.
Related links
- Hot Rats on Wikipedia
- Hot Rats on Discogs
- Hot Rats on AllMusic
- All Hot Rats-related items here at the Radar Station
Help us out
If anyone is able to complete or update any of the information above, then please do get in touch.